Sunday, Feb 16, 2014 at 13:08
The message is loud and clear.
DO NOT blindly trust any GPS.
Even though the GPS may have been purchased in the last week, the maps may be out of date.
Many GPS units you get a single free update directly after purchase.
Most road navigator GPS companies update at least every 6 months.
Even with the most recent updates, they can be wrong...they just dont update minor or obscure roads.
Of course you have slip lane or service road syndrome, where the resolution of the GPS can not account for you beeing on the main road or highway, and being on a slip road or paralell access road.
Then you have the routing algoritims.....on the lower priced units they are not at all clever.
OH there are the routing options.
These GPS uints are just fabulous for finding an address in a particular street or finding a street in a partricular neibourhood, or letting you know where you need to turn......but for actual navigation they are piss #@$y poor.
I have always refeered to my paper maps ( on road or on the water) to know where I am going and how I want to get there.
Except for a couple of ocasions where I have been a bit lazy.....I have regretted it every time.
I don't have to go past the end of my street before I know the the route planned by the GPS is not the best way to go.
Around town, no matter where I go the GPS will be telling me to turn at
places I know damn
well are not clever, and recalculating its route.
Its regular tricks are, taking you where you have to do right turns across very busy roads, where two streets up there are trafic lights.
Planning convoluted routes thru backs streets when the main road or a minor arterial is way quicker and easier.
Oh in a truck or towing a trailer putting you thru very narrow streets with redicuously tight truns where you sinply wont fit, or up and down very steep hills.
They cant be beat for calling out the turnings a several hundred meters out, long before you could read the street signs and preventing you overshooting highway exist you know you want.
But as a blind navicational device...Um NO.
cheers
AnswerID:
526571