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REAL LIFE NEWS: SEE, I TOLD YOU SATNAVS WERE BAD FOR YOU!

by Hazed

No, this isn’t another report of some idiot following a satnav’s instructions blindly into disaster...

Instead, it’s a new study that shows that when satnavs give you complex instructions, you stop driving safely.

Researchers at London University’s Royal Holloway and Lancaster University put motorists into a car simulator to test their response to satnavs. While they had no problems coping with simply instructions, when they were given too much information they started to swerve, speed up or fail to notice pedestrians.

The lead researcher, Polly Dalton, said that this showed the gadgets needed to be kept simple. “People are capable of following spoken instructions in a car and it’s actually a really good way of presenting information to them,” she said. “It’s important not to make those directions too complicated because that runs the risk of asking them to keep too much information in mind when they are also trying to concentrate on the driving task.”

However, she pointed out that listening to instructions - even complex ones - was a lot safer than looking at a map while driving.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18349499

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