Why sat navs are a conversation killer

When my daughters learned to drive, I suggested they take their tests in automatics as driving manual cars would soon be redundant. I worry about this. Not because I think I was wrong, but because I fear that gear-changing is yet another of those once commonplace skills which may soon be lost to technology for ever, like double-declutching or the ability to memorise more than three phone numbers.

As evidence of this depletion of tacit expertise, consider how the satnav has eroded map-reading skills in anyone under 40 – something which might explain why the Russian army sticks to main roads even when driving tanks. Since nobody uses printed maps any more, it has left people spectacularly ignorant of relative geography. One friend’s son recently left his parents’ house for London to cadge a lift to a concert. Nothing odd about that, except his parents live in Taunton and the concert was in Devon. I’m not much better myself. When asked to describe my route to someone’s house recently, other than naming a pub I had seen on the way, I was completely clueless.

Yet in my childhood, at least among provincial folk, the default when welcoming people to your home was to quiz them about their journey. They would then describe the route in granular detail. If your guests were from the West Midlands, this could go on for ages – not because the journey was necessarily long, but because Brummies form strong allegiances to roads the way other people support football teams. I once got in a taxi at Coventry station and asked to be taken to Warwick. ‘Do you want to go on the A46 or the A429?’ the driver asked. It was assumed everyone, even first-time visitors from Kent, would have a strong preference.