In my defense, I use it not because I don’t know how to get where I need to go, but because it shows real time traffic info that could help me find another route to avoid said traffic rather than being stuck in that traffic. Driving through local roads to get to work sucks because sometimes it’s fine but other times there are accidents or roadwork that causes backups.
Yeah, I once was driving to a routine place where there ended up being major roadwork that closed off a key stretch of road and the side streets ended up being a confusing maze. I eventually just ended up having to pull over and get the GPS out.
And then google tries sending me through backcountry roads because iT sAvEs EiGhT mInUtEs in a 5 1/2 hour drive, not realizing its hard to travel 80kph on dirt roads cutting through hilly residential areas.
Oh my god when we moved from Oklahoma to a town in the mountains of Vermont this issue made the last day of driving hell! It’s my fault for not checking the route on such a big trip though.
We had visited this town several times and always drove in on a major interstate with no issues. Well when we were finally loaded up with the 26’ U-haul and towing a car behind, I just selected the default route to our new address in VT.
It was fine up until the last day when we started to get to the mountains and to my horror it was taking us on these tiny one lane roads up extremely steep mountains and super narrow roads.
When going downhill I was braking as hard as I could and the U-Haul was barely even slowing down and the brakes would be smoking at the bottom. And on the way up I was flooring it and barely getting up to 20 mph sometimes.
It’s a miracle the truck made it through the dirt roads at the end. We finally rolled into town on what I now know is a historic, scenic route that the leaf peepers like to take.
Note for future - even with an automatic transmission, you can shift into a lower gear (2 or even L) on a downhill to have the engine slow you down and save your brakes.
The U-Haul automatically downshifts to engine break in tow mode when you tap the breaks. That was with engine breaking, the engine was screaming.
The gear selector also had the options for M, 2, 1 but I didn’t use them for fear of blowing up the engine if it went at an even higher RPM.
It blows my mind talking to my grandpa. His first question is how was traffic and the next is how did I get there. Then he’ll say well next time take the 5 for 3.9 miles, then hop on 78 until you see the 420 then do a triple lane change to the 69 then you’re home. And then I’m like sure thing grandpa I’ll remember that for sure, as I’m tapping the home button on google maps lol.
My uncle was visiting a few months ago from overseas and I was driving him somewhere in my home town, and he off-handedly mentioned a different route he’d taken to get there in the 1960s lol
Then he’ll say well next time take the 5 for 3.9 miles, then hop on 78 until you see the 420 then do a triple lane change to the 69 then you’re home.
Without even knowing where those roads are I see you are on the West Coast.
“How did you get here?”
“I dunno, I just did what my GPS said!”
“I followed the blue line until it told me to stop”
I’ve enough with this one
Modern problems require ancient solutions
(It works conected to the odometer)
Also as “Smartwatch”
To avoid construction and traffic jams, they listened to the radio with the news of local traffic.
https://bitrebels.com/technology/this-is-the-first-gps-dated-back-in-the-early-1900s/
Honestly they should just be pleased we don’t have to spend as much effort and brain space as they did just for transit.
Exactly they did not have internet porn back then.
More time to doomscroll
you need GPS to go to the place youv’e been multiple times, because you have GPS. Your brain does a funny thing where it doesnt feel like it has to remember shit when you have the answer infront of you on a computer/phone/device cause it is basically using that device as its short term memory.
Same with phone numbers. We used to remember them, or at least a handful of the most important ones.
Nowadays it took me years just to memorise my own.
Yeah, having the internet in my pocket absolutely affects how much I commit to memory.
Which is a good thing, at least for how my mind works- leaving it up to the internet to fill in the details frees up space in my head to retain a greater breadth of vague knowledge…
You and I both know that freed up space is just used for anxiety.
It’s like we can all match the most “erudite” that lives 50 years ago just by the fact we can access infinite knowledge at all times. At the end of the day those guys’s work was to know where to look for information in their libraries, and have the surface knowledge to understand what they were reading about.
It is problematic though. Having access to information is not the same as using it. We have kinda “outsourced” most of what was considered common knowledge back then. We think we don’t have to remember a lot of “common knowledge” because we can just look it up. But how often do we actually look up that fact instead of just assuming something, even though that information can be accessed immediately?
If you think about it, it is most likely less often than you would have assumed, because it becomes a bother contintually having to look up facts in the middle of something. By having memorised a lot of common knowledge you can immediately incorporate that knowledge into your decisions, as they did back then, instead of having to pause your decisionmaking in order to look something up.
I remember routes even with GPS, and even better when you learn the roads. I usually only have GPS on for traffic data. On the other hand, I never remember phone numbers…
when my ancestors can find their way around a foreign country just as well as their home town, then I will accept criticism.
I wouldn’t have survived either. I barely survived the Map Quest era. One wrong turn or a detour and I was fucked.
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A trick to “learn” routes… put the GPS in your pocket, and only listen to it… this way you start to spot the landmarks we used to use to navigate by.
But I like watching the little arrow
Fun fact: If you use Google Maps, and press on the arrow (while the navigation is started), you can change the arrow to 3 different cars.
another point where gmaps is terribly carbrained, no such option for cycling
Watch the road
s/ancestors/wife
Seeing these little IT gems all over Lemmy always makes me smirk :)
I remember 15 years ago navigating for my dad to get him through Montreal using only one of those horrible paper maps. It was awful.
Today Google maps navigated me from the middle of nowhere Vermont (which is pretty much the entire state) all the way home across country and provincial borders no problem.
I use it to avoid traffic
Ditto.
Traffic can be very heavy and very random in my city. You never know when a road is blocked.
Every time I don’t use GPS I regret it.
Sometimes theres traffic and the gps lets you know to avoid it!
AAA tier
