Monday, August 13, 2012
A purposeless road trip
“Are we there yet?”
Apparently, in many cases the answer will be “No” for the duration of the trip.
According to a study by a provider of car insurance and Populus, out of more than 20,000 motorists, 55% have gone for a drive – just to have a drive.
Getting behind the wheel solely to commune with the road is not uncommon – 10% of the people surveyed did it every week.
I’ll have to admit, I’ve never got into my car when I didn’t have a destination in mind. For one thing, I wouldn’t know where to go, and for another thing, fuel is too expensive to be driving without a goal.
Yet, ignoring the expense of filling up the tank, I think having a lack of scenic routes has a big part to play in my lack of aimless motoring.
I believe my point is proven by the statistics. In Northern Ireland, Scotland and North East England, more than 60% of people have just gone for a drive – whereas only 47% of Londoners have bothered taking such a purposeless trip.
I know that driving past impressive natural scenery would be much more likely to get me into my car than pavements and office blocks. Still, I suppose not having a green and pleasant land on my doorstep is saving me money.
Photo © Nature Pictured by ForestWander via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: car insurance, destination, drive, driving, fuel, motorist, Populus, route, trip, wheel
Monday, November 21, 2011
Hippocampus GPS
Do you always get lost? Maybe you just need to update your brain with new maps.
Apparently, according to neuroscientists at the Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience at University College London our mind works like a sat-nav when we’re making our way somewhere by foot. One section analyses how far there is to go before we reach our final destination, and another part decided upon which route to take when we have several paths to choose from.
One of the scientists explained, "The posterior hippocampus cares about how long a route is going to be. It's like GPS. It knows how far you've got to go in the real world and it gets more excited the closer you are to your goal."
So, if you’re thinking about getting a sat-nav, maybe you don’t even need one!
On the other-hand, navigating your way through some of the UK’s more complicated roads, like the one-way systems which encircle whole towns or cities, might be a little easier with GPS technology on your side, and not just the posterior hippocampus.
Photo © dkwonsh via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: brain, destination, GPS, hippocampus, lost, map, navigating, road, route, sat-nav
Monday, October 24, 2011
Sat-nav blindness
Sat-navs can be really useful for people who haven’t taken a certain route before and feel more confident if they have some guidance.
The problems begin when motorists rely too heavily on their GPS system and begin following it blindly to the ends of the Earth. The truth is, voice on the machine may sound authoritative, whether it’s Yoda or the basic man or woman’s voice, but it is still a machine and doesn’t have a brain.
No offence meant to sat-navs, they’re a great piece of technology, but if they hasn’t been updated for a while they could take you down a road that’s blocked off, or across a junction that doesn’t exist anymore, or tell you that through the new shopping centre is the best course of action.
One lorry driver recently got his vehicle wedged between two buildings at the end of a narrow lane that his sat-nav had told him to go down.
A car probably would have gone through – but this man must have forgotten that the GPS doesn’t know what vehicle you’re in.
A landlord near the narrow lane stated, “It was a very stupid thing to do and the locals thought he was a bit of an idiot for doing it.”
He caused damage to the properties on either side and the lorry was finally freed in a six hour operation the next day.
Next time he might try to judge the situation for himself before blindly doing as the sat-nav tells him…as should we all.
Photo © Mavroudis Kostas via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: GPS, guidance, junction, lorry, motorist, narrow lane, road, route, sat-nav, technology, vehicle