Confusion over sat nav windscreen placement rules now cleared up?
The new year has kicked off with confusion over where you are allowed to legally place your sat nav on your windscreen. According to a recent tweet by the Greater Manchester Police, many of us have been breaking the law it seems by not placing our sat navs in the bottom right of our windscreens. The force posted a picture showing the correct position, only for members of the public and motoring groups to tell the police that they were wrong.
The Highway Code states that “windscreens and windows MUST be kept clean and free from obstructions to vision” with GMP criticised for saying in effect that a sat nav placed at the bottom middle of a windscreen is illegal.
The force has now deleted the tweet and replaced it with general sat nav placement advice. Perhaps the easiest way to ensure you’re road legal is to attach the sat nav to a mount which slots into an air vent, removing your windscreen from the equation altogether.
As a side note, while touching your sat nav/phone screen at any point when driving or stationary with your engine on is illegal (hello £200 fine and six points!), the AA recently stated that while the sat nav should be programmed with the route before setting off, “if it pops up with a message which requires just one press of a button, such as ‘A faster route has been found. Accept/Decline’, you should be OK to do this, as you would with an in-built sat-nav.”
The use of the word ‘should’ though is hardly reassuring. Perhaps then some clarification on both these issues via updated legislation in 2018 might help clear up any remaining confusion in the minds of the public – and the police.
Police cars © West Midlands Police