So if you tried going on a motorway, would they intervene by taking hold of the wheel to prevent you breaking the law? I read a story once about someone that tried to join a motorway on a test and was stopped on a slip road and the examiner just to them they had failed and left them there.
I doubt this happens very often! Do you have any more up-to-date stories than something from 1999? If not, I'll stick to my opinion that this was a one-off, hence worthy of a story.
There are are people these days that have passed a driving test but just do everything the sat-nav says. By introducing indepdent driving to the test it shows you can drive indepently without having to rely on a sat-nav to tell you there is a junction ahead.
I am sure that statistically you're right (it's impossible not to be when you say something so general like that) but not everyone uses their SatNav all the time. I certainly don't when driving locally, although sometimes I might (rush hour) for the benefit from live traffic info.
Nor does everyone using a SatNav not know how to read a road sign. I can see some people see a SatNav as the spawn of the devil, but using a map, SatNav or simply using your eyes can (and should) all work together.
I do wonder how many people ever get to learn how road signs work (or should work, as I think things have changed slightly in more recent years), such as the names of towns/cities put on them, their ranking (nearest/furthest), places that can be reached with a change of road etc.
Then you have the trunk road network where you have some places signposted using roads you might not take by looking at a map (or using SatNav) because they're trying to get you onto certain roads and not smaller ones.
