The Pariah:
I have a strange memory though in the sense that when I have been somewhere once, even if I don’t go again for 6 months I can get myself back to it step by step, even if the route is down backroads and so on. Granted, I’m on store work, but I’ve probably memorised the routes and locations of over 100 different stores ranging from Weymouth to Boston to Gillingham along with around 25 locations within the M25.
Exactly! I got the same…
…unless I go somewhere following the sat nav. Because if you drive with maps, you have a wider picture, and you create that map in your head. That helps for exaample when you approach low bridge or road closed. With sat nav, you have to tap through the options to find diversions, or just drive around and being annoyed that it leads you back and back to the same place. With map in your head, you can instantly think up alternative route.
More over, if you get there by yourself, you think how to do that, and this is how you learn. If you just follow the sat nav, you just follow the instructions, and you don’t really think about where are you, and how to get there.
Until I started doing Europe, I never used the sat nav, and I was doing deliveries allover UK from Belfast to central London. I still posses a small crate of the maps, mostly Philips, with major UK towns and practically whole Scotland covered by Philips so far. I only bought Sat Nav, because of the nature of my work - If I had to carry with me plans of all European cities I might find myself in when I am out for the run, I will need another sprinter to follow me 
Also they very often ask me for my ETA, and sat navs are great for it, I am really happy with my sat nav as it has free TMC and estimates are in most cases very accurate.
So this is the main reason why during my work, I have sat nav on on most occasions - it also serves as a guide for speed limits and speed camera warning. It is also useful as, it being navigon, its just one tap on the screen to find diesel, cash mashines or somewhere to eat. I am also not condemning sat navs, I like the toys (I just upgraded maps in mine and installed 3d view that was offered to me as a compensation for delay in servicing) and when it can make my life easier, I use them.
I just made interesting observation - my boss has a few friends who run another companies, and sometimes he “borrows” us drivers to drive for the others. Its me on most occasions, as I am not a full driver at the moment, so I am doing mostly local jobs. For recent few weeks I was covering someone’s holidays in local company supplying materials to upholstery trade. I was driving Renault Master with built in sat nav, where most of the customers were stored in favourite. So when I was going out, I was just looking for the customer name in favourites, if it was there, I was following sat nav. But if it wasn’t, I went for the map - as most deliveries were in Central Belt, it was much easier to me to just look up for the place on map and go there from memory than messing around with the sat nav (especially that this renault Tom Tom does not have touchscreen, but you need to use that stupid remote).
The Pariah:
It might not sound impressive, and to be fair it isn’t in the grand scheme of things, but seeing as some guys run with two or sometimes more Sat-navs I like to think I’m doing pretty well. It’s a skill which is no longer needed sure, but it keeps me focused and when the drivers mates are all “How the hell are doing this without a Sat-nav in the dark?!” it makes me feel quite good
I know what you feel… Recently my sat nav was serviced, which took few weeks, as I had to sent it to Germany. When doing some jobs in my place, I was asking the office staff “could you show me that on google?” so they were looking it up, and asking me if I want printed directions… I liked their faces when my answer was “no, thank you, I looked on the map and I now know where it is, so I don’t need directions”
And one more thing: when I am off for holidays, I rarely use sat nav at all
