Motor Industry News

While vast numbers of drivers struggle to come to terms with the latest sat-nav systems and in-car GPS devices, more than 5m motorists are still trying to find their way round the country with road maps from the last century.

Hundreds of miles of new roads across the country are completely unknown to many drivers who insist on relying on out-dated maps - some going as far back as the 1950s.

Recent research has discovered that around 1/7^th of UK motorists are wasting hours every year either sitting in jams or lost because they are relying on route finders from 2000 or earlier.

A survey, carried out by YouGov for Trafficmaster, found that some 364,000 still prefer maps from the 1980s while one in every 100 drivers over the age of 55 regularly refer to maps produced in the 1950s - long before even Britain’s first stretch of motorway was opened.

In the last 10 years alone Britain's road system has changed dramatically with the completion of several major road projects, including:

• the A34 Newbury by-pass road link in 1998
• the M11 Stansted Airport spur road in 2002
• the M6 toll road in 2003
• the widening of the Middlesex section of the M25 and new junctions in 2005
• the upgrade of the M77 in East Ayrshire in 2005 and
• the improvement to the M60 in Manchester in 2006.

By contrast the survey also found that as many as one in five drivers have ditched road maps altogether in favour of satellite systems and other modern methods of route planning to avoid hold-ups and delays.

"Road changes are happening all the time and outdated maps can add hours to a journey," said Roger Powell of mycarcheck.com

Researchers recently calculated that drivers waste 812,500 gallons of fuel every year getting lost after taking wrong turns. According to Sat Nav firm Becker, motorists clock up 325m wasted miles with the worst offenders being Londoners who do 26m miles every year trying to find their way around.