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Arguments because of map-reading
Monday January 10, 2005 - Pan-European research ordered by TomTom has shown that disputes about map-reading and navigating are the number one cause of arguments in the car.
According to 40% of the Dutch people, disputes about map-reading and navigating in the car are the biggest reason for arguments whilst driving. That’s one of the conclusions from the pan-European survey that was held not so long ago by the British research agency Lightspeed. 1.006 inhabitants from Holland, Germany, France, Spain and the United Kingdom were asked to participate in this survey.
The disputes about map-reading scored 42,3%, which is a lot higher than some other annoyances like eg. fighting children on the back seat (22,1%), traffic-jams (13,8%) or a missed exit (12,4%) scored.
Another question that was asked to the participants was what worried them the most whilst driving. The results showed that more than half of the people (50,4%) worried about aggressive driving. A flat battery is hardly on the Dutch questionees’ minds: only 2,9% chose this option. For 10% of the people, car trouble in an unknown environment was their worst nightmare.
Worst
The worst drivers in Europe according to the Dutch are the French (32%). The reasons that are given for this are that they don’t overtake according to the rules (32%), that they ignore traffic signs (21,5%) and that they don’t seem to know the difference between right and left (24,1%). Interesting to note is that the opinion of which country produces the absolute worst drivers differs a lot throughout Europe. According to the Germans, the Spanish and the French, the Italians are about as bad as it gets.
When the question arised of what car gadget was the best, an overwhelming majority (75,7%) chose for the car navigation system. Here there was no difference of opinion throughout the different European nationalities: all agreed that the navigation system was number 1. Interesting to note: 20% of the Dutch people would like a DVD-player in their car. Mainly to keep the kids quiet whilst driving...
All in all TomTom must love these results. Because they offer several GPS solutions for car use (TomTom GO being one of them), which apparently can prevent much screaming and shouting from happening. Of course, this is hardly news to us GO users...