Sat-Nav, it’s everywhere. When my mother-in-law starts asking me about it and my wife starts to swear by it (rather than at me) on long journeys I know that the technology has reached mass market acceptance.

Spare a thought then for hauliers, tour buses and other large vehicles trying to navigate the Ring of Kerry using their trusty Sat Navs. As reported by the Irish Examiner newspaper today, it seems that satnav reliant drivers are going the wrong way around the Ring of Kerry route and are getting stuck in the many narrow tunnels and mountain passes that dot the route.

“Large vehicles should go around the spectacular road anti-clockwise, starting from Killarney and heading in towards Killorglin. However, Killarney FF Cllr Tom Doherty said numerous vehicles using GPS this summer went against the traffic flow and got stuck. ” (from Irish Examiner).

The root cause here would seem to be manifold, but ultimately boil down to the accuracy of information and how that information is presented.

The traffic flow arrangement on the Ring of Kerry has no legal standing at present, despite having been agreed a number of years ago. Therefore, satnav manufacturers may not have factored it into their route maps and underlying rules because they didn’t know about it (completeness of information). However, it also appears that the signage around the Ring of Kerry isn’t sufficiently clear to alert bus and truck drivers that there is a non-standard traffic flow in place (quality of information presentation).

The Irish Examiner reports that Killarney Town Council is to write to Satnav manufacturers to alert them to the issue.

Of course, Co. Kerry isn’t the only place where over-reliance on satnav has landed people in difficulty…

A Czech lorry driver got stuck in a narrow lane because his satnav told him to go that way (knowledge worker failure)

A Satnav system directs drivers to a bridge that doesn’t exist (accuracy of information)
Who’d have thought that two places might have the same name? (accuracy of information)

Conclusion

Satnav is a useful tool, but there are issues with the quality of information provided by satnavs. Of course, there are also problems with some of the knowledge workers (drivers) who blindly follow their satnav directions without applying common sense to ensure that the size of the road is consistent with the size of their vehicle. Also, satnav errors are often compounded by poor quality of signage and other information that might help drivers make better decisions (like not driving into the deep river ford)