History is rife with instances of seemingly benign inventions and technological advances that end up undermining the inherent common sense our ancestors enjoyed. For instance, how many people have you seen spend several minutes searching everywhere for their TV remote control when they could have just changed stations at the box itself?
Now we have GPS and SatNav and other cool acronyms and abbreviations to deal with. As the popularity of in-car satellite navigation systems increases, it's no surprise that more and more drivers are putting more faith in technology than in what their own eyes show them.
Not long ago, a tale circulated of drivers passing through the village of Luckington and winding up in a river because their SatNav directed them to a bridge that had been closed. Warning signs on both sides of the road and nothing but an expanse of water ahead of them did nothing to dissuade some drivers, simply because they were told to take that route by a disembodied voice. Villagers found themselves pulling an average of two cars a day out of the river, and one local resident told The Times newspaper, "When you ask what happened, they say, 'My sat-nav told me it was this way.'"
In a village called Crackpot (yes, I know), there were several instances of drivers being directed off the main road and onto a stone covered trail that obviously wasn't suitable for anything but 4x4 vehicles. It didn't help matters that the trail was on a cliff edge 100 feet high, and the tech-worshipping travellers were backing perilously close to the edge when they finally sussed that they weren't going to make it through and had to turn around.
It makes you wonder how many times people might have tried to locate the Leeds City Art Gallery, the University of Leeds, or even parking at Leeds Bradford Airport, and found themselves enjoying the picturesque countryside that surrounds Leeds Castle in Kent instead.
