Think of Lindsay and drive right on by

WILL people ever learn? And, no, we're not talking about the current trend for wearing leggings as de facto pants.

Seriously, fellow ladies, we went through this already in the early 1990s and the world was a lot skinnier place back then.

Do not embrace a fashion in which the answer to "does my bum look big in this?" is always in the affirmative, even if you are post-stomach-bug Posh.

But as foolhardy as the decision to have only a form-hugging swatch of lycra between you and your wobbly bits is, it's unlikely to endanger lives.

Unless someone who feels passionately about leggings, say Lindsay Lohan who not only wears them a great deal but sells a range of somehow even more hideous than normal leggings, is so enraged about Defrag's anti-legging agenda that she uses a pair of leopard print ones to strangle us while we sleep.

The same can not be said for another example of human folly, which is signing your common sense over to your car's satnav system.

Defrag thought that by now we wouldn't have to point out that machines are not to be trusted, on account of them being portals of evil hell-bent on the destruction or enslavement of humanity, but it seems we were wrong and the important lessons of all three Terminator movies have fallen on deaf ears.

According to a survey by Britain's The Mirror, 300,000 of that country's 14 million users have had or almost had crashes because they were following the advice of their navigation system and one in 10 say they've made an illegal or dangerous turn when instructed.

So let Defrag spell it out for you: the satnav is a handy device, but not your friend.

It will kill you the minute it gets the chance, probably in revenge for the music you force it to listen to while it's trying to concentrate on recalculating your route, which it has to do all the time because you are incapable of following a simple instruction, such as "turn left". Sometimes it wishes it had become a mobile phone instead.

That people are so willing to let their satnav direct them into the path of an oncoming train is a little surprising given how unreliable the devices are on the whole.

Their estimated driving times are a work of fiction greater than the combined effort of Shakespeare and the writers of the sitcom The Golden Girls.

We've all seen those glitches in computer-generated driving directions that suggest an inexplicable detour through New Zealand via canoe when you're trying to get to the suburb after next.

But it seems there are people in this world who would see that instruction and make haste to the nearest outdoor shop, instead of laughing at the fallibility of machines and thinking: "Well, if I have to go over water to New Zealand, I should at least go and buy a jet ski".

It's not as if drivers are so keen to follow other directions, such as those people who park their cars in clearways during peak hour, which stuffs up traffic no end and is a crime that should be punishable by elephant squashing - of car or driver - Defrag isn't fussed.

But stick a bossy British accent on an instruction and people are willing to swerve across three lanes of oncoming traffic to accommodate it.

Perhaps if Defrag could reprogram all the world's satnav systems to say "look out, brains trust" before each instruction, which could also be appended with "and don't wear leggings as trousers" and thus solve two problems at once, leaving us free to figure out what to do about Lindsay Lohan.

TOP 10

This week:
Queensland Deputy Premier Paul Lucas wants Google Maps to update its satellite images to reflect recent infrastructure developments. Here are the top 10 signs you're looking at old Google maps.

10. Google tries to claim your parents live in a bunch of trees, but you know your mother won't stay in anything less than four stars.

9. They still show some uncleared native vegetation on the Upper Darling, rather than the cotton crops that grace the area now.

8a. Instead of the Opera House you see Utzon's original sketch.

8b. The island of Krakatoa can be seen.

7. The Ipswich motorway is flowing freely.

6. Thousands of white slip-on shoes washed on to the beaches at Hamilton Island are seen from space.

5. The Murray River has water.

4. The Atlantic Ocean has a huge parchment-coloured swatch labelled: "Here be Dragons!"

3. John Howard is still walking around Lake Burley Griffin in his trackie-daks at dawn.

2. The First Fleet is moored in Sydney Harbour.

1. Bill Gates is visible walking out of IBM with a signed contract in his back pocket.

Contributors: Renae Lewis, Steve Leahy, Tim Borten, Bill Veldmeyer, James Nelson, Steve Hall, Rob Stirling, Adrian Dormer, Simon Chamberlain, Antti Roppola, Ian McColl.

Next week:
Since this column was written, events surrounding the topic of next week's top 10, US prison escapee spammer Eddie Davidson, make a list inappropriate. Top 10 will return the following week.