The choice isn't between listening to a GPS while driving and awkwardly
reading a map while driving.
It's between reading a map and comprehending the overall route, important
landmarks and critical junctions *before starting out*, as opposed to
blindly relying on real-time instructions from a GPS while otherwise being
entirely ignorant of the environment. In the latter case, say the unit craps
out, or runs to the end of its database and asks you to load a new CD, or
loses satellite lock in a canyon or downtown district -- you are suddenly
and completely at a loss.
While if you took the time to create a mental picture of the region and
understand the major road networks, you would generally know where you were
in the scheme of things.
I'm not saying a GPS nav system isn't a useful tool. But if everyone relies
on them utterly, we will wind up with a generation of drivers that never
actually knows where they are (in the sense of looking out the window and
recognizing landmarks), and moreover, doesn't even see why that might be
important. Then the North Koreans will blow up a geostationary satellite,
filling the orbit with space junk, and bring the whole system down, causing
immediate chaos on the roads ;-)
--
Max Heim
'66 MGB GHN3L76149
If you're near Mountain View, CA,
it's the primer red one with chrome wires
on 3/28/11 3:50 PM, Murray Arundell at arundell at ghs.com.au wrote:
> This is a problem because....? Who says conventional mapping is any
> more accurate. Its my experience that conventional mapping can
> contain absolute howlers of mistakes..... I'd rather be in traffic
> surrounded by people listening to GPS directions than be surrounded by
> drivers trying to navigate solo while looking at a map lying on the
> passenger's seat..... From a Road Safey point of view its an absolute
> no brainer..... and given this GPS SHOULD be a standard fitting. How
> often have we been carved up by some moron who clearly has no idea
> where he is or where he is going and out the corner of his eye spots
> the street or off ramp he needs.....
>
> Murray Arundell
> Brisbane Australia
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