A snippet on ABC Radio National, as I woke up this morning, described research by two Taiwanese into the use of GPSs in cars. The short story seems to be that they gave 16 drivers car-GPSs and 16 other drivers maps and told all of them to drive from A to B, ie, the same start and destination locations; on different occasions the A and B would change but all drivers used them the same number of times in the tests. Some of the trips were urban and some were rural.

At the end of it all they found that drivers with GPSs travelled 7% less distance than those with maps, if the trip was urban, and travelled 2% less distance of the trip was rural. The inference drawn was that GPSs saved in greenhouse gas emissions from driving.

Rural trips for GPS-equipped drivers were also less variable in routes taken and the inference drawn was that such drivers were less frustrated (and thus safer) than those using maps.

Looks like we're all destined to be deskilled.

Cheers, Rowan