We rely upon a lot of sophisticated technology in our daily life. Unfortunately a lot of people (and politicians) do not understand the background and limitations of the systems we rely on. Or even worse, take pride in the fact that they do not understand technology. Not very smart, as a recent example shows.People assume that navigation systems (satnav) like Garmin, TomTom, Route66 and others work identical. After all, the road is the same and the satellites are the same. Wrong.
There have been some serious accidents with motorcyclists touring in the countryside and crashing into each other because the satnav systems gave different instructions. One said “go straight”, the other said “go left”. Differences in software, hardware, or which satellites are being used can lead to different directions. Currently motorcyclists who use satnav in touring clubs are instructed to drive behind each other to prevent these kind of accidents.
