Well, okay, a lot of them probably can read a map. But a poll by insurance company eSure revealed that nearly three-fourths (or 11 million) Brits are unable to identify a motorway road symbol. And only one percent would pass the Cub Scout Map Reader badge test. Yowza.
Part of the problem seems to be that many British citizens have become too reliant upon satellite navigation systems. “Technology is great,” says Scott Sinclair of national mapping agency Ordnance Survey, “but the batteries won’t run out on a paper map.”
The survey was based on a poll of 1,000 drivers and concluded that Britons’ poor map-reading skills wasted 36 million miles driven each year.
[via Reuters]