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’s random because everyone is using GPS to determine the routes that are not contested resulting in those areas becoming contested.
I’ve noticed google maps always gives me the same, longer route while waze always gives me the fastest one. I believe maps has some kind of thing to manage traffic so it doesn’t always give you the fastest route.
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”
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.
Is this that “Californians” SNL sketch?
I had never seen that before… It’s so accurate lmfao
No, it’s real life. I mean yeah I know the sketch, but I was in Crater Lake and heard people actually talking like that.
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.
This is California as fuck.
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
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!”
Sadly it’s almost never the case where people say “oh, life is better for you! Cool!”
Let’s change that!
Life is better for you! Cool!
More time to doomscroll
Studies have shown that using your brain to navigate once you get used to a route is beneficial.
Yeah well, studies have also shown that I’m a lazy fuck, so there’s that
I heard that study was peer reviewed too. Pretty definitive stuff.
We have the same studies.
Haha this guy doesn’t fuck. He’s just lazy 🦥
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.
I just like to have a little minimap following me like in a video game.
I use Waze whenever I drive, it also keeps me informed about accidents, cops, and other hazards.
lmao calling cops a hazard
Walks like pig, oinks like a pig…
But…what if the traffic changes after you leave?
Perhaps they have a short commute, or perhaps they have a phone mount in their car so they can see the traffic live on the map.
Or maybe they’re just screwed
I’m almost 50 and I never remembered my way anyplace pre map apps. I’d far rather be navigated for.
I drove for a little while before gps was a thing, and I’m so glad to have it.
I used to print out mapquest directions if I was going across town.
God forbid we miss a turn.
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.
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
s/ancestors/wife
Ultimately nobody survives anyhow, enjoy the time you have while you can.
I’ll enjoy it while not being lost at least
I use Waze any time my wheels roll. In the Boston area there is a huge input of data for the quickest route from A to B.
I wouldn’t have survived either. I barely survived the Map Quest era. One wrong turn or a detour and I was fucked.
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.
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.
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.
