Well, it looks like in-car GPS navigation systems aren’t the best thing since sliced bread after all. Apparently “19 percent of drivers who used their GPS lost concentration while driving, compared to 17 percent of map readers” (although, as one reader pointed out, statistically speaking a difference of 2% is negligible). More interesting is how one driver, relying on the directions provided by his in-car navigation system ended up with a flat tire in the middle of the desert. This was not, as the company - Mercedes - maintains, a result of a problem with the GPS system. However, Mercedes goes on to say that “that a GPS system is not meant to replace regular maps, or driver judgment, but is simply an enhancement to travel available to vehicle operators, which they may elect to use or not.”

Still, for the gadget obessed, the GPS navigation system has clear advantages over the paper map.