How my satnav saved my life

I've never seen the need to have a satnav in the car, as I'm one of those people who is quite happy to find the route on a map, memorize it, hit the road and subsequently get lost. These days, I will print the map out from the internet, have a look at the destination and a few key junctions from Google Street View, memorize them, hit the road, and subsequently get lost.

We have a lot of 'getting lost' adventures. But I only ever get lost once.

So, I had my first ever experience of satnav the other weekend, on an epic trip to Millwall-by-theSea that is the North Kent coast. Of course, the best bit of driving under a satnav, I have found already, it to completely ignore it and see how long it takes before it gets into a huff and demand that you perform a U-turn in the middle of a dual carriageway. In the case of our chosen application - Navfree for iPhone, quite a long way. Yet it still claims the victory when you arrive.

However, there is one part of the satnav experience for which we are eternally thankful: The wild animal warnings. We had planned to pop into a few shops in Guildford on the way back, but were put off by the large number of carnivorous creatures in the area.

At every turn it was "BEAR LEFT" and "BEAR RIGHT", horrible ursine death at every corner. Yet the people of Guildford shopped on, regardless of the danger.

Also, "ALLIGATOR IN MIDDLE OF ROAD" on the way through Aldershot. God bless you, satnav.