[mannykannot]

This may be unique to following roads. As far as I can recall, the advice when performing pilotage (navigating by the correspondence of the landscape to the map), whether hiking, sailing or flying, is to orient the map according to the direction you are looking, which is most often the direction you are traveling. When using an electronic map in a car (as a passenger of course), I prefer north-up if I am finding a route and forwards-up if I am following directions.