Compare car insurance quotes
from over 90 companies

A new sat nav being developed by researchers at Newcastle University should improve the safety of older drivers, which could encourage them to stay behind the wheel and stay independent for longer.

The Intelligent Transport team at the university have turned an electric car into a laboratory called DriveLAB, which includes a sat nav that only directs motorists to turn left and uses landmarks such as churches and pubs to tell them when to make manoeuvres.

This could boost the car insurance market for elderly drivers by keeping more older people on the road who can feel safer behind the wheel due to the sat nav's features.

"We all have to accept that as we get older our reactions slow down and this often results in people avoiding any potentially challenging driving conditions," said professor Phil Bylthe, who runs the team.

"The result is that people stop driving before they really need to. What we are doing is to look at ways of keeping people driving safely for longer."

Even technophobes among the older generations need not worry; the sat nav has been designed in a way to be much simpler than the mainstream satellite navigation market.