GPS/HELL NO!

Some people have no brains! Someone that rides their vehicle on train tracks does not deserve the privilege of having a drivers license!!

I agree with McWiggins. GPS works well with a degree of common sense (which isn't as common as one would think).

I also read an article about a woman in Australia, who stayed at a stop light for over 24 hours because the lights were stuck on red.

Before a trip I usually take a look at a map , get a good general idea. Then use the GPS on the drive, it is nice for alternate route pop up if traffic gets screwy in an unfamiliar area. What confuses me is using it over and over for the same place. I know people who make a 3 hour drive every week , and still have to use GPS. They seem to just turn it on for the trip like you would a radio. Maybe they like the ladies voice on it.

My mother turns her GPS on all the time in her vehicle. Her reason for it though is understandable. She's a dialysis nurse and runs to facilities in the city. The GPS allows her to take alternative routes depending on traffic conditions as well as gives her alerts before she gets to said traffic. Provided the information comes in on time as there are moments she finds herself in traffic.

Google maps on your phone is pretty good for information, but nothing replaces common sense and a good AAA map for travel, is what we use when going on a vacation. When driving through Houston only prayer will help...almost went to Galveston twice trying to get out of Houston.

I remember my parents always having naps when we went on vacation. They even called AAA ahead of time and they would send booklets with the routes. Every xxxx amount of miles you turned to the next page and continued on.

On the last trip to Michigan I made, I grabbed an Atlas for old times sake. I've made that trip no less than 20 times and can get to my grandparents old house without looking at anything but the exit signs. But I like maps.

I also remember being taught how to read a map and use a compass when I was younger. Today, if s kids smart phone dies, they're lost (in more ways than 1)

One thing that shines with GPS is I can get routed for hazmat routes, avoid “No trucks allowed” which is often lacking in signage, but not lacking in an officer out to generate revenue. I can even route depending on load configuration, 53’ trailer versus doubles/triples, and oversized.

Still, none of it is an exact science, I still carry an atlas for over the road trips and have paper maps for individual cities as a backup. The smartphone came in real handy finding a shop nearby that had the software to read my computer when I recently was warned in cab that my unit was going to power down. It isn’t unusual for a shipper to get the address wrong, Google maps quickly confirms or gives me the correct address. In some locales around here, there are 5 digit county addresses on one side of the road, four digit city addresses that skip in and out of the boundaries, GPS solves that.

All the tools allow me to operate more efficiently and expeditiously when used together. Back when I hauled swinging beef and had a breakdown in a desolate area it was a royal pain in the butt. Now I can summon help from inside the cab, hopefully limp off to a safe spot and shut it down till the cavalry arrives.

I can operate fine if tomorrow all the technology went away, but for the latest generation of truck drivers, I am not sure about a lot of them.

It's just a machine. A fellow at work hit an Uber driver when she pulled in front of him in a reverse lane (don't ask) and slammed on the brakes because her GPS told her to turn left when it was illegal to do so.

Would relying on a map or written directions have saved him? Maybe. But, sooner or later, someone who blindly listens to a machine is going to cause serious problems sooner or later.

Personally, I like to plan my long-distance routes out on a map because I neither want the fastest nor shortest, but most interesting roads, but being able to zero in on a restaurant or hotel in a new city is a modern marvel.

Lol. I never thought of it like that.

The same thing happened to a couple from San Francisco on a trip back from the Pacific Northwest. The ranger locked the gate after they had turned on the forest road, so when they went looking for them, they figured no one got past the gate.

They had nothing for them survival wise, but that is another story.

I love maps and never go anywhere unknown without consulting one first. I carry a large scale atlas in my cars and a Gazetteer is in my work kit.

GPS is great but I don't trust it. Just for the "fun" of it I followed the GPS to my home in AZ a couple of weeks ago. I knew it would take me cross country on US 54. After an hour on two lane roads I missed going 80mph on my preferred route.

Long Before GPS I took a couple of shortcuts in Arizona only to find the road on the map was nothing more than a trail at best.

Off topic but about stupid. Working in road construction I've seen it all. Mostly confused old people who are to stupid/comfused to follow a sign or they think the signs aren't for them. I've seen so many stuck, one old guy drove up a ditch filled with 3 foot rip rap and others who drove into wet concrete. We can't pull them out and so they are stuck until the police or sheriff come to investigate.

That happened to me once. I shot the lock off a USFS gate. BTW, Locks are not resistant to a .44 magnum. The problem is the USFS don't "sweep" the road before locking the gate. They have no idea if anyone is in there and apparently do not care. Years ago, I was field security for a large mountain development and had similar responsibility. Always drove the roads from the very end to the front gate to usher people out. Remained at the gate for at least an hour after locking it. There were no cell phones in those days.

That bugs me too! Just because the computer says something doesn't mean it's true or not fixable!

GPS is like any other tool... As good or lousy as the person who uses it.

I've seen skilled woodworkers turn out amazing creations with a lathe. Me personally, I can make a lot of sawdust .

None of the foibles listed here are actually the fault of the GPS system; they're problems with mapping applications that use a GPS position to generate a route. The problem lies with bad map data or a poorly generated route (and then foolish people following it). All the GPS system does is provide a position, and it does that breathtakingly well. Think about what it means to a skilled navigator, to have instant position data available at a glance, anywhere on the planet, accurate to about 12 feet. GPS is one of the coolest things to come out of the twentieth century!

Heck, in the 17th century there was a 20,000 pound prize offered to anyone who could find approximate longitude at sea, and thus fix a ship's position (once a day, at local noon) within about 60nm. That was considered a phenomenal and probably impossible feat. The reality is, during the great age of exploration, most ships spent most of their time in a condition we would call "lost".

At work, I often have to fly a pacific crossing between the U.S. west coast and the Hawaiian Islands. This is the most remote crossing between pieces of land on the planet. Not very long ago, Clipper crews did it via dead reckoning and celestial navigation. That's admirable and I enjoy studying the history. Me personally, I'm just going to stay on my magenta line .

Just a different perspective. GPS has revolutionized more aspects of the world than many people probably realize. That plus Google Earth puts a level of geographical knowledge and navigational ability in everyone's hands, that a navigator of any other time would have cheerfully killed you for!