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.
I found a ridiculous road closure last week, and GPS routed me through a ton of backroads I had never taken before. It was only marginally faster, but I'm glad I was constantly moving, and not on a highway-turned-parking-lot for those 2 hours. Also, we got to experience some new scenery that we may never have seen otherwise, which is at least interesting.
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
"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"
That was me on driver license course, 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.
Gen X and prior used a lot of landmarks to get from A to B where routes were commonly used. Landmark navigation is still heavily used today in places like India and Mexico where routes change hourly sometimes due to road closures and accidents that gps mapping cannot account for.
I once had to drive pre-google from Paris, France to Madrid, Spain and then to Valencia, Spain with nothing more than a AAA Auto Club map and a Philips Road Atlas. Not fun in many eays, but it was an adventure.
When grandpa asks "how did you get here" its a trap. Whatever answer you give will be wrong and will correct you with a lecture
This is California as fuck.
Honestly they should just be pleased we don't have to spend as much effort and brain space as they did just for transit.
"Wish I'd had that!"
More time to doomscroll
Exactly they did not have internet porn back then.
For some reason, I like to know when I will arrive.
Yeah GPS is equally about traffic now and not just navigating
i like to hear the voices guide me on my journey
Not me. I like the directions, but I turn the voice off.
This guy mental's
I too like to have a countdown until anxiety sets in.
I'll use Google maps to check for traffic on my route before leaving, but that's all.
If I'm going somewhere I've been more than two or three times, I don't use GPS.
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 with extremely high grades up and down!
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 all the leaf peepers take.
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.
Guy at work always wonders how I get to the jobsites before him and he’s stuck for 15 minutes sometimes… I look up the traffic using maps first.
s/ancestors/wife
Seeing these little IT gems all over Lemmy always makes me smirk :)
I used to be really proud of being able to get anywhere without a GPS until I moved to the city. You could've been somewhere a million times but when they close streets seemingly at random a GPS becomes nearly impossible to drive without if you care about your time. Fast forward five years and now I use the GPS even to go to work every morning.
Sometimes theres traffic and the gps lets you know to avoid it!
Yeah, I always use navigation even on very familiar routes. Saves me time when there's an accident or unexpected event ahead of my route.
We were delayed for an hour on an already painfully long road trip once because my dad "Couldn't imagine why the GPS would recommend that" right before steering us into a traffic jam.
Right, and road closures. Even if I know the route like the back of my hand, I turn on navigation for the real-time information.
I've been saved many hours of sitting in traffic thanks to notices of road closures, car crashes etc
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.
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.
yep. still remember my childhood home phonenumber cause i had to dial it so much.
cant remember my own cell number without opening my cell and looking at it.
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...
Ultimately nobody survives anyhow, enjoy the time you have while you can.
I'll enjoy it while not being lost at least
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/
The only thing I use GPS for is to zoom in and see exit numbers before I get to them. I am a weirdo and when I go somewhere once, I am usually good to go.
AAA tier
I wouldn't have survived either. I barely survived the Map Quest era. One wrong turn or a detour and I was fucked.
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.
