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Ground Control to Major Tom

In 1962 Bob Dylan asked the question 'How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?' In 2005 I am asking the question 'How many roads must a man drive down before you call him lost?' My question is based on a number of recent experiences, both as a driver struggling to find my bearings, and as a pedestrian witnessing the behaviour of other motorists. All too often I witness a navigating passenger being threatened with violence by an irate driver, simply because they don't know the way to San Jose .

It is easy to get lost when attempting to drive around the roads of Britain today, especially when dealing with unfamiliar areas. Modern motorway junctions are a mass of interlinking roundabouts which resemble a MENSA puzzle when viewed aerially, and urban sprawl has left us with cities that have no definable limit. Luckily for me, I have found the answer to these problems (and many others) in the form of Tommy.

I was recently lent Tommy for a trip to Bristol , and it made the journey an absolute breeze, even helping me traverse the busy and complex central business district twice. Tommy, or Tom Tom Go 300 to give its full title, is an in-car satellite navigation device. All you need to do is tap in the address or post code of your destination and it calculates your route in seconds, providing alternative options should you wish to avoid motorways, toll roads, busy traffic areas or roads of a particular shade of asphalt.

The device uses a combination of spoken instruction and three-dimensional onscreen colour diagrams to direct you. This is particularly useful when approaching a complex junction, as it creates a virtual reality mock-up of the path you must take, and guides you to the correct turning/exit. The standard voice tone is quite palatable, and to the lone traveller I suspect it is even quite comforting. If one is unable (or fails completely) to follow the spoken instructions provided, for example when waiting to turn right at a set of traffic lights, Tommy becomes quite insistent that you do as you are told and repeats the instruction. This is a safety net for the MTV generation whose attention span is less than the timing sequence of the average set of traffic lights. Alas such people will probably have lost interest and abandoned their car in search of an iPod and an alcopop by the time the repeat warning is announced, but it's the thought that counts.

The only danger I have encountered with Tommy is that the onscreen world is more engaging than the real road, as it replaces traffic and litter with smooth coloured landscapes and empty roads. I am convinced it would be possible to treat the whole experience as a video game and end up attempting to drive using the screen, which could be disastrous in terms of road accident rates. On the other hand, the good thing about watching the screen is that you aren't forced to look at the endless stream of sales reps undertaking you in their company carriages, and you can clear your mind of the over-sized lifestyle vehicles driven by Mr. & Mrs. Interesting that clog up the outside lane of every motorway in this country.

As well as guiding me through the smog, Tommy has a number of other interesting features. It can advise on the nearest place to get petrol, locate parking facilities, alert me to the presence of speed cameras, and point out places of interest. The latter option could prove quite interesting, especially given my previous point about being captivated by the screen. If Tommy was set to identify celebrities' homes as 'places of interest', then I could feasibly pull up outside the house of a former big brother contestant (take your pick), wait until they emerge and then run them over, claiming that I was too busy concentrating on the screen to notice. Of course I realise that this would be a criminal offence, but in theory my only crime would be driving without due care and attention.

The only feature I feel Tommy is missing is that it doesn't currently recommend places to eat. I don't know anybody who likes stopping at motorway service stations; the food is usually pretty poor and you are guaranteed to pay over the odds for it. The trouble is that we don't want to stray too far from the motorway to locate an alternative, so instead we simply pull into a service station when our bladder reaches bursting point, dispense our hard-earned cash to an incoherent school drop out, and suffer the inevitable disappointment in silence. Imagine if Tommy could direct you to the nearest decent pub or restaurant; the mid-journey meal would take on a whole new dimension and people would actually start to look forward to it.

A device such as Tommy reduces the need for conscious thought on the part of the driver; at the risk of sounding like Homer Simpson, why bother remembering the way to work when you can have someone do it for you? This lack of active involvement means that drivers can concentrate on the more significant issues that affect the society we live in, such as which minor celebrity they will run over next.

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