“Too many people just blindly follow their GPS without THINKING. Most truck driver’s I know don’t use GPS, they plan their routes, they check the local road condition when they stop.”
But the same problem exists with maps. I have these books of maps for the surrounding counties. One shows what looks like an excellent short cut to the in-law’s house. One day I was feeling adventurous and decided to follow it. It went from a 2 lane to a 1.5 lane road, and then I came to a farm field. Then it became two gravel-filled ruts to the top of the hill about a quarter mile away. I decided to follow it anyway. At the top of the hill, it became a 1.5 lane gravel road, then a 2 lane gravel road, and eventually it was paved again. That was the last time I took that “short cut”. All sections of the road looked the same on the map despite running through private property.
Yes maps can be wrong, and so can GPS units, that’s why truck drivers ask about routes. Had you asked the locals about your shortcut, odds are you would have found out the road wasn’t really a road but a trail. It is also why most truck drivers stick to well know routes. If your GPS is off by just a block, you can find yourself going the wrong way on a one way street or find yourself going the wrong way on a highway. That’s why I said blindly follow their GPS. I also said GPS can be handy, but you should be aware of your route ahead of time. Nothing takes the place of good planning.
“JT, that won’t happen if your maps are up-to-date. How old was that map you used?”
It was just a couple years old at the time. But I don’t see how an new map would be better than the old one. This road had probably been that way for the last 200 years. And I am a local. The road is about 20 minutes from my house. My main concern was driving through what appeared to be private property. It hadn’t rained in over a week; there was very little chance that I would get stuck. The worst that could have happened was that I would have needed to back out the quarter-mile if there was no way out of the farm at the other end. I could have turned around, but I was curious and wanted to see where the road led.
Rand McNally comes out with a new trucker’s atlas every year because construction projects start and finish all the time, requiring updated maps.
There are a lot of public roads that cross private property, and I don’t think you need to be concerned about them unless you see a “private property” or “no trespassing” sign of some kind.
My aunt and uncle have a public gravel road that runs down the middle of their farm. This situation is hardly unique, and such a road should be on a map if it is open to public travel. This particular road I mentioned happens to be maintained by the federal government, so the feds re-gravel it every year and plow it in the winter. Other property owners in the area use this road to get to their land.
“You Have Arrived At Your Destination.” Probably The Safest Feature Of Our GPS Is Its Ability To Guide Us Right To An Address When We Are Out Of Town.
Heads-up, the driver can concentrate on driving in a strange neighborhood, instead of craning the neck and searching desperately to find street numbers, which are all too often nonexistant, especially in commercial areas where we travel. When I used only maps, no matter the degree to which I planned, I’d sometimes have to focus on heavy traffic or there wouldn’t be any numbers and I’d have to try and turn around and search again, sometimes more than once or I’d be forced to ask a local.
I guess you’d have to married and have kids to appreciate this safety aspect of the GPS. I don’t have to ask my wife or kids (my son’s got his own) to take it when they go out of town, they automatically want to take it. I like knowing that they’re not going to get lost or drive around needllessly in a strange area.
There’s no getting around it, a GPS offers lots of advantages, keeps a safe driver even safer, and they’re here to stay. They’ll only improve with time. I still enjoy a good paper map, but paper maps will go the way of other old-fashioned printed material, the same way newspapers are losing out to modern technology.
Well stated, CSA.
(or is your new signature, “GPS”?)
Whether it is exit signs on a freeway that pop up way before your actual destination, or street signs that may be missing or not very legible, the ability to NOT have to look for those signs and instead to focus on traffic while listening to a soothing voice giving you timely cues regarding where to turn, amounts to a significant safety advantage, IMHO.
VDC, I’m not sure we’re really in disagreement. You’re paying attention to the road and using the verbal GPS cues. My concern is for those paying attention to the LCD display and not the road…and there are tons of them. The more toys the manufacturers put into cars, the less safe we all become.
Well, I think that we can agree that anyone who devotes his/her attention to anything other than traffic is being very foolish and ultimately is probably engaging in some dangerous behaviors behind the wheel.
As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts in this thread, just this week a NJ woman received significant jail time after being convicted of vehicular manslaughter. She was “inputting” an address into her GPS while driving, and was also intoxicated. Hopefully she will rot in jail for causing someone’s death through her actions.
Whether it is someone who is texting, or looking for songs on his/her I-pod, or someone whose attention is glued to the screen of a GPS, that person is a hazard to others and should be ticketed and fined before they wind up killing other innocent folks with whom they share the road.
I am sure that we also agree that there is no shortage of dangerous, distracted drivers out there on the roads!
VDC, I sincerely wish I could muster an arguement against that last point. But I cannot. The roads seem loaded with vehicles with a loose nut behind the steering wheel.
it was supposed to be able to download stuff for it to switch the image of the car in front of you with something else, like a bird or something. I’ll have to go through and try to find it. It was only available in Japan, thankfully