I had a truck driver (tractor trailer) show up last Friday. He had a different address for my facility, but it was not my area. I was trying to send him to the proper address, but the GPS would not send him to that spot, nor would it correct for fenced off roads.
My directions were to go around the block (3 lefts) go three blocks before making a left, then another three blocks to make a left into the proper area.
He got lost.
And that is why my Garmin spends most of it time on the shelf. Maps are so much better.
I am really impressed with Google Nav on my Android phone. Driving out to LaGuardia from the Jersey Shore area with my f-i-l the other day, I was loving the color coded route display. Green = good, yellow = marginal, red = stop and go. It was super accurate. Coming back, it gave me a different route through Manhattan. "That can't be right ... click, click, click. Hey, if I force it to go back the way we came, it estimates a 20 minute longer drive." So through Manhattan we went, arriving home at almost exactly the estimate.
Wanted to check out a V70R at a BMW dealer in North Jersey on Saturday. Forgot my phone, the Garmin in the car (an older Nuvi) had a broken charge cord, and I couldn't remember the address to punch it into the XJR's height-of-2000-technology on-board mapless Nav. It was quite pathetic of me. I punched in a random address and got close enough to ask for directions from a local. :)
A downloaded the free SCOUT app on my iPhone. Love it!
Mmadness wrote: 'Remember when people tell to "look ahead" and "look into the corner", this is why.
she couldn't, there was a large pile of rocks. DUH!
Waze FTMFW.
moparman76_69 wrote: I'm not sure she could find the refrigerator, much less figure out how to make a sandwich.
I'm not sure that was the kind of sandwich he was referring to... 
Flyin Mikey J wrote: I asked her if there was anything wrong. Her answer astounded me, "If I crash on the race track, everyone will see it and laugh at me."
Did you answer, "How is that better than how we laugh when you crash on the street?" 
tr8todd wrote: A local XChristmas oriented amuzement place around the corner from me has a big sign on an adjacent street that states "your GPS is wrong, Edaville Rairoad is the next right" Before the sign, people would drive right out into a cranberry bog.
I have nothing to add, except that Edaville at Christmas is awesome.
Wife and I rented a car to go to FL last year. We rented because we planned on flying back. Anyway I took my trusty gps with out of date maps and off we went. Everything was fine until it was time to come back. Told gps to take us to the airport and off we went... Problem is we got to the airport and it was deserted. Turns out that was the OLD airport. At this point we were worried about missing our flight but I looked up the new airport on my phone then good ol mapquest to get there.
tr8todd wrote: A local XChristmas oriented amuzement place around the corner from me has a big sign on an adjacent street that states "your GPS is wrong, Edaville Rairoad is the next right" Before the sign, people would drive right out into a cranberry bog.
We've got one of those around here except it is Google Maps that has it wrong. I was going to watch my niece play in a high school basketball game in the next county so I printed out a map and directions.
The last direction was to turn right on XXX Road. As I approached the turn I could see that it was a gravel road with numerous home-made signs saying "Dead End, Private Road, etc. When I looked to the left there was a nice paved driveway with a sign with the schools name and a very visible very large building, so I turned left!
In checking it out later I found that this was a known problem with Google Maps that had existed for several years. According to some newspaper articles it had resulted in several school busses hauling sports teams getting stuck on the one lane gravel road and having to be towed out backwards.
I was there in the evening after sunset and had no problem seeing the high school. It amazes me that people would blindly follow the directions when it was so obvious that they were wrong.
When I was moving from Omaha to Tampa, I was using my 10 year old Garmin that my folks had got me for Christmas. I didn't have a smartphone at the time. It was a pretty uneventful drive except for the time it routed me through a cemetery somewhere in Georgia. The roads were laid out really weird and I had no idea where I was so I just went for it. I imagine what a funny sight it was to see an extended cab F150 pulling a Mustang on a tow dolly, bouncing all over, through a cemetery.
I always say you have to be smarter than the GPS.....
The ski shop I work weekends at is on a big circle in an office park. GPS shows our address as being on the other side of the circle about 1/2 mile away. So we get 30 calls on a busy saturday with dummies complaining that we're not where their GPS shows.
Then when you tell them that we're on exactly the opposite side of the circle and there's a big sign in front of the building with our name on it, they invariably as "so which way do I go on the circle."
It's a circle. You go whichever way you want to go.
Jerry wrote: My GPS still has 2008 maps on it. Sometimes when I'm going through the re-done section in Dayton and "she's" yelling "Recalculating" over and over I think about driving into the river to silence her.
Dayton is why I bought a new one a couple of months ago.
I rely on my Tom Tom every day, as many as 30 addresses a day, it has taken me to the wrong city one time in 7 years.
I am a fan
I have gotten verbal electroni-Brit instructions such as:
"Continue off-road".
and
"Would you like to switch to pedestrian mode?"
One of those off-road instructions was telling me to continue about 1 mile straight ahead to my destination (in the pitch dark)- through a 200' deep gorge, and across a dammed lake. The correct route was nearly a 10 mile loop.
I use it every day. Awesome tool. But I know when to ignore it.
Usually I just enjoy cussing back at the friggin' thing with a British accent.
Hal wrote:tr8todd wrote: A local XChristmas oriented amuzement place around the corner from me has a big sign on an adjacent street that states "your GPS is wrong, Edaville Rairoad is the next right" Before the sign, people would drive right out into a cranberry bog.We've got one of those around here except it is Google Maps that has it wrong. I was going to watch my niece play in a high school basketball game in the next county so I printed out a map and directions. The last direction was to turn right on XXX Road. As I approached the turn I could see that it was a gravel road with numerous home-made signs saying "Dead End, Private Road, etc. When I looked to the left there was a nice paved driveway with a sign with the schools name and a very visible very large building, so I turned left! In checking it out later I found that this was a known problem with Google Maps that had existed for several years. According to some newspaper articles it had resulted in several school busses hauling sports teams getting stuck on the one lane gravel road and having to be towed out backwards. I was there in the evening after sunset and had no problem seeing the high school. It amazes me that people would blindly follow the directions when it was so obvious that they were wrong.
you're kidding …. right ?
I have never used a GPS, and very seldom do I get lost anywhere. I do sometimes use Google maps, but for the map rather than the directions.
An old friend of mine did turn me onto some Google map funnies a while back. For example, try "Portland, Oregon" to "Adelaide, Australia".
Last year I had a family reunion, and we had rented a large cabin outside of Gatlinburg, Tenn. We had just picked up a coupe more realatives, and hit a lot of weekend traffic in town on the way back to the cabin. We decided to take the less crowded scenic route, and headed for the hills. We were relying on the GPS to find it's way back. We found ourselves way out in the sticks, civilization a distant memory. after the road grew much rougher and narrower, it ended abruptly at a large creek. There was a road on the other side. The GPS insisted that we proceed, but didn't recommend Dukes of Hazzard or WRC water crossing style. Figuring the Ford Flex rental was up for neither, we back tracked and had to navigate back the old fashioned way via the compass.
Hmmm an Ohioan, I am not surprised in the least
I rely on a GPS for work, currently a TomTom xl. From what I have read they use Google maps. Just don't select the user updated ( any idiot with another tomtom can change or add info )info and you should do pretty well with it. I tried that option for a while and started noticing ATM's taco bells marked at crack houses and other random way off locations.
Garmin and few others on the other hand will give you some fun stories. The one I had always tried to get me wrong way down one ways, to drive to middle of corn fields, other stuff like turn onto bridges that I was driving under/over
jere wrote: Hmmm an Ohioan, I am not surprised in the least
Google maps is the problem. There is a road where I used to live that is seasonal, meaning not plowed in the winter and may be flooded by a beaver in the summer. I tried to get Google to mark it as such but they have no option for a seasonal road. At least the truck trail is not on the maps. Tom-Tom (I call it lost-lost)sends everyone down that road. I have to try Magellen to see if it is better.
The only real problem I had was with Yahoo maps back in the day prior to cheap GPS. Probably 03-05 before Google maps was around. We had booked a vacation cottage and it did the classic rout us down a road that dead ended in a creek in a farmers field. I've never had a GPS problem that a millisecond of common sense couldn't resolve. My biggest issue with my Tom Tom, or mistress Tam Tam as she was know as I loved being told what to do by that harsh English accent, was the E36 M3ty quality where the board broke so you couldn't charge it after a couple of years.
I went to England a couple years ago and rented a car. I looked at a map a few times but ultimately I put all my faith in the Tom Tom. (generic name applied to all makes of GPS over there) If that berkeleying thing had told me to make a left into the Thames I would have got wet. So I can see the other side. But it didn't. It took us faithfully and accurately to many urban destinations.
My Magellan says I'm on I-30 at Exit 24/Eastchase Parkway in Fort Worth. It has said that since yesterday morning, when I was.
I'm actually about 300 miles WNW.
Might be time for a new GPS.
I've got a garmin Nuvi portable for use in the Mustang and the Sploder and it does pretty well, but then again I keep it updated. My biggest gripe is the lack of routability. i usually know which way I want to go even if I don't know the full route. Or I like to take the scenic route. It's hard as heck to make the Garmin go where I wan to go by a route I like. I usually just go the way I want until I reach the end of my knowledge and then turn on the GPS.
The wife's new Mazda, however, has the built in TomTom system. It is amazing. The routing system is really flexible and you can keep making it figure new routes almost indefinitely. It usually hits the weirdo route I was thinking of on the second try. It also has really good info on food, fuel, POI and stuff. I've been really, really impressed.
And the Australian dude voice is a really funny smart-ass type.
slantvaliant wrote: My Magellan says I'm on I-30 at Exit 24/Eastchase Parkway in Fort Worth. It has said that since yesterday morning, when I was. I'm actually about 300 miles WNW. Might be time for a new GPS.
Magellan: A GPS named after an explorer who got so badly lost that he ended up being EATEN!
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