Most newspaper reports have picked up on the driver blindly following his satnav’s instructions and ignoring warning signs but other reports make the situation clearer.

“The DHL delivery driver had started work at 7.30am that morning. It had been a long day for him and he had only made 85 drops out of 120 he had to complete by the time of the accident.

“It was a strange area to him and he was under a great deal of pressure to get the delivery out first and foremost.

“This is a 21-year-old man who was under significant pressure from his employers.

“He was panicked and fairly stressed and at the time of the accident still had 35 packages to deliver.”

The accident happened at 1735 – the driver had already been working for over 10 hours and had done 85 drops out 120 in a rural area of Northumberland that he was unfamiliar with. His satnav sent him down a gravel track where he was confronted with an unmanned level crossing seemingly of the type with no warning lights.

One report says “Foster had ignored safety notices at the crossing and had not followed written instructions to ring a signaller to check if it was safe to cross. Instead, he simply attempted to cross the track, causing the accident.”

I used to have to cross one of these crossings regularly and I’m certain that the signs actually said something like “drivers of large or slow vehicles must phone signalman for permission to cross”. As he wasn’t driving either then maybe he should be forgiven for not phoning the signalman – if that’s what the signs say of course.

Richard Booth, the chairman of the Tynedale magistrates’ bench, said “we have taken into account that you were under considerable duress at the time of the accident.

“I think your employer needs to be taken into account.”

Mr Foster received a 13-week jail term, suspended for 12 months, and was ordered to do 200 hours community work and pay costs of £60.

It’s not clear from reports whether DHL face any action for their part in the accident, or indeed whether the driver was an employee, a subcontractor or a ‘Service Partner’.

One particular paragraph of the review stopped me in my tracks and made me think about the general problems people have had with satnavs since their introduction – namely satnavs sending drivers down unsuitable roads:

According to PC Pro, “The most significant upgrade to the new range is TomTom’s new route-finding ability – dubbed IQ Routes. What this means is that the 930T, along with the rest of the new “x30″ range, calculates routes not using the speed limit data alone, but also by taking into account the average speed of real-world traffic on those roads.”

Just pause for a moment to let that sink in - not the fact that IQ Routes™ (cue the jingle again) calculates routes based on the average time taken to travel those routes but that TomToms in the past have calculated the fastest route based on the speed limit of the road.

Even my first copy of Autoroute had options to set different driving speeds for different types of roads – rural A roads, urban B roads, urban motorways etc. It beggars belief that up to now TomTom have been basing their route calculations on speed limits.

Think about it – is it generally possible to make better time on an unclassified road than on, say, a speed-restricted section of the A1? If TomTom has been calculating routes using speed limits then it’s quite possible that it would direct you onto an unclassified country road with a (theoretical but unachievable)60mph speed limit rather than a fast A road which is restricted to 40mph for safety’s sake. The fact that you may be able to only do 30mph on the minor road is apparently irrelevant to the TomTom.

It certainly seems to explain some of the stories of satnavs directing people down totally unsuitable roads when there’s a perfectly good major road available as an alternative and may also explain some of the bizarre routes (Leicester to Croydon via the Edgeware Road anyone?) often taken by inexperienced drivers relying on satnav instructions.

With this in mind I was saddened to read this story about a young woman who died last week after a delay in getting her to hospital, caused by a faulty satnav.

The first lines of the story reminded me of my thoughts about the older TomToms’ route calculations:

“A young woman died after the ambulance taking her to hospital got lost on the way because of a faulty sat nav unit.

The vehicle carrying Kay Gadsby, 21, was directed along a narrow country lane instead of a quicker main road.”

The story goes on to explain that the satnav actually ‘packed up completely’ after that, and that the delay in getting Kay Gadsby to hospital may not have caused her death.

This particular satnav may not have been using this obviously flawed ‘speed limit’ routing method – it may just have been faulty – but the tragic story does show the fallibility of satnavs and the dangers of simply following directions from a satnav without actually thinking about the route that it’s sending you on.

IQ Routes™ is available on the TomTom GO 730, the TomTom Go 930 and on the ‘Traffic’ version of both units which take current traffic conditions into account when calculating your route and can adjust the route to avoid hold-ups.

According to a report in The Scotsman, the navigational experiment took the form of a ‘race’ over a 989 mile route between three teams of drivers.

The race was won by a team of men relying on reading road signs and asking directions. In second place was a team of women relying on their map-reading skills and the car relying on satnav finished over an hour and a half later.

So apparently men can ask for directions, women can read maps and satnavs don’t always find the most appropriate routes.

The report goes on to quote Luke Bosdet from the AA: “Unfortunately, many drivers become slaves to their satnavs – turning sharp right on to railway lines, rivers and, in one instance, a toilet on a German building site.”

Sarah Sands from the organisers of the experiment, Reader’s Digest, is quoted as saying “It goes to show that when you’re trying to find remote locations in the Lake District or navigate busy city centres, you’re better off relying on the people who live there, rather than a line on a piece of paper or a computer.”

I’d suggest that the outcome of this experiment might have been very different if the team relying on directions from locals had been trying to find locations in mid-Wales or in central London.

Satnav and asking locals for directions are without doubt useful methods for couriers to find their way around but both have their disadvantages. Satnav is occasionally inaccurate, often suggests less than perfect routes which add miles onto a journey and encourages professional drivers to rely on it far too much.

Asking directions is all very well until you find yourself in an area where the locals aren’t really local or deliberately misdirect people that pronounce their place names wrong.

The real answer is to develop good map-reading skills, a good knowledge of the national road network, make use of postcode location facilities on Multimap and Google Maps etc, ask the locals if you’re stuck and always use your brain first and your satnav second.