Sat-navs are for gormless fucktards who should have their keys forcibly confiscated and their cars crushed.
There are many technological advances which have added to our lives as motorists. Safety advances like ABS and stability control. Engineering advances like variable valve timing and direct injection which have improved performance and economy. Then there's advances which have added fuck all of nowt, like speed cameras, which have aided wholesale revenue raising without making a pinch of shit's difference to road safety. And above all others, sat-nav, which enables fuckwits with no spatial awareness to blunder into congested cities they have no business being in, under the stilted instruction of a washed-up celebrity in a sound proof booth.
Oh but what if you're on holiday? What if you're in a foreign city? Unfamiliar surrounds? Driving on the wrong side? Well, maybe you fucking well reevaluate the decisions that put you there, you ignorant arsehat?
PLAN YOUR FUCKING JOURNEY. It's Driving 101. Get a map. Look at it. Figure out where you are. 'Oh I don't have time...' MAKE FUCKING TIME. Driving is not a right. It is a privilege. It is a skill. If you do not have the spatial intelligence to read a map and understand where you are in relation to it, you should not be operating a motor vehicle. At all. Ever. Take a taxi. Take a train. Take the bus.
Assuming you can read a fucking route map, of course.
Why does this fuck me off so? Why, instead of 'LOL' at endless stories of clueless fuckwits blindly following clueless sat-nav direction up mountains or off piers or into lava pits because the computer told them to, is my reaction 'YOU UTTER CUNTS, YOU ARE BOLLOCKSING IT FOR EVERYONE'?
Because it is embarrassing to be sharing a species with you people, let alone a road.
We evolved unmatched spatial awareness to avoid getting eaten on the Serengeti, and you're handing that birthright over to a recording of Billy Connolly which will deposit you down a disused mineshaft the first chance it gets. Lose those skills and they will never come back. I will never - write this down, tattoo it on your arm, chisel it into your driveway - NEVER choose to purchase or use a sat-nav, and I reserve the right to judge the fuck out of you if you do.
I got my licence in the sticks, but I learned to drive - the period after you get your licence when you actually learn the shit which keeps you alive and afloat on the road - in the inner suburbs of Sydney. Where parking is hand-to-hand combat. Where merging is a game of 3D chicken. Where a wrong lane choice can fuck you sideways for so long your clothes will be out of fashion by the time you find a way back onto Cleveland St. And where there is always another way to get where you want to go, if you're willing to roll the dice and invent a route cross-country, rat-running through the backstreets and badlands of Sydenham or Alexandria to get from east to west. And in every city I've ever lived in, and any city I visit, it's the same script. No fucking sat nav required. Just a dog-eared old UBD, a largely reliable shitbox, a vaguely operable sense of direction, and the willingness to go and get lost.
Because it is only those who are willing to get lost who will truly find themselves.
The Doctor is OUT.
7 comments:
I thought I wanted a GPS once. It was vetoed by the Minister for War and Finance.
"What a waste of fucking money. Anyway, I read the maps," she said.
And she does, very well mind you. Some time ago we walked across England, and tMfWaF did all of the Navigation. Except for the afternoon of the 1st day, when I got us lost.
Agreed!
I've always been one to want to know where I'm going and how I'm getting there (at least roughly) before I go. Maybe it's about being in control or being able to make adaptive choices rather than being totally stuffed if the GPS screws up.
The only caveat is that looking up Google Maps on the phone prior to going may replace looking up the crusty 10 year old UBD.
Yeah the source of info will go digital, but the key thing is looking it up YOURSELF, not relying on Computer Says No Turn Left.
Also, cab drivers who use satnavs should be forced to refund half their fare. You are being paid to (a) drive and (b) know where you are going. If you only have half of those KPIs under management, you only get half the payola.
England's not that big, how lost could you possibly get? [smug Clarkson turn-to-camera]
Agree generally. Only thing I'd take some issue is with speed cameras / revenue raising. Never understood people whining about revenue raising. There's an easy fix. If people don't speed, there's no revenue. Maybe I'm looking at it through too simple a lens.
True, and that's largely my approach. Problem I have is being lied to about the reasoning behind it, which is cretinous and wilfully misinformed. Speed doesn't kill, otherwise Germany would have a population of three. Fucking up kills. Driving badly and making shit decisions kills. But since that's not as easy to police, or as profitable to target, we get the SPEED KILLS myopia. I hate that the symptoms of shit driving are targeted and not the causes, which are appalling levels of driver training and equally appalling road manners. Speed cameras don't save lives - in fact the opposite, in a lot of studies. Accident rates rise with heavier policing of speed, particularly by cameras. Make people focus on speed through fear and their limited focus won't be able to cope with driving a motor vehicle properly, because people are cretins. Besides, the best deterrent to speeding isn't a camera on a pole, or unmarked vans hiding behind bushes - it's a fully marked pursuit cruiser blazing up and down the highway. But you don't earn revenue through deterrence.
People will continue to die, and the cops and ministry will continue to bleat that SPEED KILLS (and will keep misreporting 'speed inappropriate to the conditions' as 'excess speed' in accident stats).
Speed does kill, cause most of the bogan fuctards who drive over the limit have no idea how to handle a car at that speed.
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