Don’t believe the sat-nav
Motorists may be relying on sat-nav devices to a potentially dangerous degree, according to a new report.
The Royal Academy of Engineering issued the warning yesterday saying that the range of applications using GPS technology is now so broad that unless adequate independent backup was put into place then the loss of signal or other interference could potentially affect safety systems and other critical parts of the economy.
“GPS and other global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) are so useful and so cheap to build into equipment that we have become almost blindly reliant on the data they give us,” Dr Martyn Thomas CBE FREng, Chairman of the Academy’s GNSS working group.
“A significant failure of GPS could cause lots of services to fail at the same time, including many that are thought to be completely independent of each other. The use of non-GNSS back ups is important across all critical uses of GNSS.”
A four year old girl died in a tragic incident last September when her parents followed their sat-nav’s instructions to turn right despite clear no-right turn signs.
Fernando Bardhaj, a learner driver, had just taken the wheel of the white Vauxhall Astra from his wife Trish just moments earlier before an Audi A5 collided with the back passenger side at 45 mph on the 60mph A6 road in Bolton. Ariana Bardhaj died of multiple injuries.
Sgt Garry Lyle, of Greater Manchester Police, told a hearing: “They were following a sat-nav and it told them to turn right. There’s plenty of signage there saying ‘No right turn’. The sat-nav said turn right and they followed that and didn’t follow the signs.”
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