Research reveals the real benefits of Sat Nav

With personal navigation systems becoming so popular over the last year or two, some have questioned the effect such systems have on traffic safety. Some feel it may distract drivers, while others think that getting motorists to their destinations more efficiently reduces stress and tiredness. To find out which opinion is right, TomTom - probably the leader in personal Sat Nav devices - joined forces with Delta Lloyd insurance, AON insurance and Athlon car leasing to commission an independent research project.

The research, carried out from April 2006 to January 2007, involved a comprehensive user survey of 4,000 motorists and a scientifically-controlled driving experiment with a TomTom navigation device, to determine effects on stress, workload and driver behaviour. Dutch research company TNO asked key questions about using a navigation system, to find out the effects navigation systems have on road safety.

Here's how the research panned out. During experiments, drivers using a navigation device had 12% improved reaction times. Moreover, 78% of people felt more in control, 68% less distracted, 67% less stressed and 45% more alert when using a navigation system. Hardly surprising, then, that 62% of the drivers felt a navigation system made it easier to keep focused on the road.

And according to the research, on average, when using a navigation system, you make 25% less stops and spend 35% less time standing still. During the experiment, drivers also made fewer turns when using a navigation device, and there were over twice as many occurrences of inappropriate behaviour (missing road signs, standing still at a green light, etc) by drivers not using a navigation device. And on one in every four journeys without the TomTom navigation device, the driver got lost at least once. But when driving with the device, not one of the subjects got lost.

The burden on the driver is clearly reduced, according to the report. A PDT test (which determines reaction time to a red LED light stimulus) proved that the objective workload was reduced by 20% when driving with a navigation system. And quantitative analysis of questionnaires completed by the test drivers after the test found that the subjective workload of drivers using a navigation system is reduced by 55%.

The research found that on journeys to unfamiliar destinations, on average, your mileage is reduced by 16% and your driving time by 18%. It also means that, because you’re driving less miles, your fuel consumption will be similarly reduced.

While touted as an independent research, it's no surprise that the results released paint a wholly positive picture about Sat Nav devices, and of course it would apply to most other portable and fixed navigation systems. We'd broadly go along with it, though experience of using portable Sat Nav devices in general reveals another side to the story. These units will sometimes plot a course that - while getting you to your destination - can leave you stressed, having navigated you through single track lanes. This may be often down to the initial settings of the route preferences and so on, but as with so many things, users seldom read instructions or spend much time to change default settings.

Checking complex junctions on a small screen can result in confusion too, and in this respect the larger-screened fixed navigation systems score better, though of course you lose the portability that allows you to transfer the device from car to car.

Satellite Navigation devices also have the effect of switching off a driver's logic. For example, you may know a particular route home but, once you've grown to rely on the Sat Nav, you may well end up following its instructions like a sheep. It's as if the driver switches off the "auto pilot" system that is built into most of us (you must have done it, listened to music or taken a hands-free phone call and later thought, mmm, how did I get here - it was your auto pilot kicking in!). We've seen or read about instances of people following Sat Nav instructions and arriving at the end of a cliff or whatever. But it tends to be more about suspending common sense than any real fault of the device.

The bottom line, coming back to the research, is that it reveals that not using a navigation system increases the number of claimed accidents by 12% and increases the claimed damage costs by 5%. So, will the insurance companies start offering discounts for drivers with installed navigation systems, and if so, will they follow the lead set by car alarms and begin to test them and put them into Thatcham-like categories? Now that would be interesting.