I had to drive today from York to Sunderland, somewhere I’ve never been before, and decided to use my sat nav.

I was thinking as it sent me down a backroad, that I wouldn’t normally have known about, as there were a few cars in front of me, how many of them were following their sat nav.

Then I started to wonder about the increase in minor-road usage due to sat navs, and thought to myself that I bet it’s pretty high.

For instance my friends went to the Lake District last week and said they love getting lost then using the sat nav to find their way home, via all kind of backroads and scenic routes they would never otherwise have known were there. I mean, in the pre sat nav days, these are the kinds of roads we’d never go down, unless we were local farmers or something, because we’d have no idea where they end up. So, in some ways, the sat nav revolution is quite liberating, especially when travelling far away from home.