Maps are really bad because they misrepresent reality which causes innocent map users to give faulty directions. Many of our members have had the experience of sitting in the passenger seat of a car and being given a map and asked to provide directions. More often than not the person with the map is less familiar with the area through which he or she is supposed to be navigating than the driver which inevitably leads to problems. In this article we will take navigating from the passenger seat as a case study to highlight the problems with maps.      All the problems stem from the fact that a map can never accurately represent reality. It is by its very nature an approximation. Corners which in the real world are sharp can sometimes appear quite gentle on the map and vice versa. Equally, junctions which look like crossroads on the map turn out to be nothing of the sort when you are actually there. Sooner or later, the navigator will be faced with having to decide where on the map they are and they will try to compare what they see through the car windows with what is printed on the paper in front of them. At some point, there will be a discrepency between where they should be and where they are and this will result in the navigator giving the driver inaccurate information suggesting that the driver should take a certain turning (or not take a certain turning) when in fact it is not (or is) the correct turning.      At this point one of two things can happen. If the driver is familiar with the area then he or she will question the navigator's judgement and may well take the right road instead. If this happens then the navigator will feel both guilty and inadequate for failing to accurately read the map (after all it's only a map!). The second possibility is that the driver will take the wrong turning. This will lead to a much worse situation where they will get more and more lost as the navigator continues to misread the map until finally they have to stop and the driver will yank the map from the navigator's hands with an air of disappointment and annoyance and the implication that if the driver had been navigating then they would never have made such a foolish mistake. The navigator will then feel not only guilty and inadequate but also angry because of this injustice.      Either way it is clear that the map is responsible for making the navigator unhappy in some way. These results can be generalised to all situations in which one person is guiding another with a map. The map's lack of correlation with the real world will result in a rift between the two people.      In conclusion therefore, maps split up marriages, turn friends into enemies, and get people lost. There is also the extra fuel and time expended trying to get back on track. I propose therefore that all maps be destroyed and that the manufacture and distribution of maps be made illegal.