It will come as no surprise to anyone who's taken a road trip with a member of the opposite sex that men and women navigate differently. Now a new study shows that they even use in-car navigation systems differently.

The differences start before purchase. Both men and women are equally aware of navigation systems (at 90 percent each in the groups surveyed by Navteq), but the single greatest source of information for women was word of mouth. For men, it's the media.

Women use features built into their navigation systems, like traffic warnings and Point-of-Interest maps, far less than men do. Almost 39 percent of women "never" use the traffic feature, for instance; the figure for men is just 10 percent.

Perhaps as a result, they are significantly less satisfied with the performance of their systems. Asked if they are "extremely" or "very" satisified with their navigation systems, 80 percent of men said yes. Only 60 percent of women responded the same way.

We suspect the men are more satisfied simply because, at last, they needn't suffer the humiliation and misery of having to respond to repeated suggestions that we simply stop and ask someone fer crissakes.

Is that a ridiculous stereotype? Somehow, we don't think so.

male vs female attitudes toward navigation systems, from Navteq studies

male vs female attitudes toward navigation systems, from Navteq studies

[GPS World]