In Car Sat Nav Turn Us Green

By Paul Haughney

On a few years ago the sat nav was only found in some of the top end expensive cars like Mercedes and BMW. However as the technology to build the sat nav systems has become cheaper the sat nav is becoming very affordable with some units costing as little as £70.

Apart from helping us get from A to B the humble sat nav is also helping us do some good for the planet, even if it's just in a very small way.

What is a Sat Nav? Well, Sat Nav, short for Satellite Navigation has been around for many years and is basically a method of precise location mapping that is derived from signals coming from numerous satellites high above the earth's atmosphere. The Sat Nav is the electronic device you have in your car that receives the satellite signals and then translates these signals into a precise map location co-ordinate. Initially put into place for military use the Sat Nav is now used heavily within the marine, and automotive industry for precise location mapping to help find our way to our desired destinations.

Key Sat Nav Features A Sat Nav can be purchased as a portable model, mainly used by ramblers and walkers and also for use in-car, which also has mapping software giving a visual representation of the area in which you are driving. Nowadays some in car sat nav models are so slim and small they can be taken out of the car and then used as a portable unit. Heck, some even have an in-built MP3 player.

Maps Most in-car models come loaded with your country mapping and the top end models may also contain maps of each European country. The quality of the mapping ensures that it is no longer necessary to carry those big paper maps although it's best to have one on standby in case your sat nav fails.

Turning us Green So how is this latest gadget making us a little greener I hear you ask. Given how accurate the mapping information is and how good it is at getting your from A to B there is certainly an argument that the sat nav can get you to your location on a shorter route and hence you burn up less fuel. The latest models now use traffic-jam warning messages so once again you may save some fuel by not sitting in traffic with
your engine idling and burning fuel. This of course is only true if you don't have to drive an extra few hundred miles to avoid the jam, but you get the idea.

Driving around cities which you don't know can also be a sure fire way of burning up un-necessary fuel and with precise voice commands telling you which turns to take the sat nav can surely help get you their quicker around town and hopefully stress free too. Another added benefit.

The more of us that start using sat nav obviously the more greener we can become as drivers. Given that a large percentage of households own 2 cars the real benefit of using sat nav to keep us green will only be fully realised if we use it in a responsible way and teach others how to do likewise.

About the author:
Paul Haughney is an avid car driver covering 1,000's of miles each year. He is also a converted Sat Nav user and also has an online resource for cheap in car sat nav.