Have Sat-Navs made road sign makers lazy ?

Having spent the last few days on a mini break near Windsor without a sat nav, I am left wondering whether the sheer volume of people owning sat nav systems has made those responsible for putting up road signs forget that there are some of us who do not use sat navs and actually rely upon signs.

I'll give you a couple of examples. Upon leaving Legoland on Friday we could turn left signposted for Windsor and the M4 (the way we came and lots of traffic) or right, which was signposted M4 Alternative route. As we wanted the M4, we thought we'd turn tight. After a while, we reached a roundabout which had one junction shown on the sign as M4. So we followed this road for another two miles, came to a roundabout, drove around it several times looking vain for any sign which the said M4. Not one did. So the directions simply dried up. It's like getting the instructions to a piece of flatpack furniture only to find that everything after the third instruction is missing.

Then there was trying to get back on to the M25 today. Driving along from where we were staying it told me to turn left if I wanted to go on the M25 South. Since I didn't, I stayed on the road. So having stayed on the road, was there a sign saying M25 North ? Was there hell. No, looking back at the map it appears the road sign should have said M25 North and South, but it didn't.

Now I know I am getting older and I have no aversion to sat navs. I simply don't own one because I have got around the country quite happily before without needing one. But I, like many others, rely on decent signing on the way, and lots of what I have seen over the last few days seems to be there just to conform to legal requirements but does not actually tell you what you need to know.