Getting lost with satnavs

SATNAVS. Do you know where I'm going with this one?

I'm genuinely lost with the latest wheeze from the world of satellite navigation, and not in the sense that I've been guided to a remote Scottish village when I actually wanted help getting to Newcastle. Ford has launched a guidance gizmo which lives in your rear view mirror.

A satnav in your rear view mirror? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this one, but I just can't shake the suspicion that it sounds at best distracting, and at worst just a little bit dangerous. But if you've got a spare £299 lying around in a box and a new Ford on order, you can find out for yourself.

Before anyone asks, no, I haven't tried it out, but I'm not entirely sure whether I'd want to, because I've always had a bit of a love/hate relationship with satnavs.

For every excellent example I've seen there's always been another which insists, in increasingly annoyed tones, that the M55 doesn't go anywhere near Blackpool. Or one that tells you to turn right once you've driven PAST the junction. I had one once which denied the existence of a small village in Staffordshire altogether.

But the beef I've got with Garmin's tie-in with Ford isn't about the gadget but where you have to look to see the streets virtually laid out - a small screen just to the left of your rear view mirror, which means you're clocking what's behind you to see what's ahead. Do you ask strangers stood behind you for directions? Nope, me neither, and I'd no sooner have a satnav screen in my rear mirror than I would in the door mirror, the cupholders or the passenger footwell. It's just not somewhere I'd instinctively look for directions.

The conumdrum was cracked long ago by the car industry; if you have to have a satnav it should sit in front of you, so you're not taking your eyes off the road when you're trying to work out where Winchester is. Whether it's the dashboard job you get on a Ferrari 458 or a Tom Tom taped to the windscreen of an ageing supermini, it's better than having to look in your rear view mirror. Or you can save yourself £290.46 and not bother, because the latest AA road atlas costs £8.54.

Rear view mirrors are where tailgating Transit vans live.