GPS Arrrghhh

[Laidback1]

Wifey and I just completed drive from San Antonio to Napa (not pulling Airstream because ours is not delivered until this August). However, we are in our TV (Yukon Denali).

Great, comfortable drive but the on board GPS drove us nuts. When we hit bigger cities like Phoenix it kept routing us thru the Business Districts instead of staying on the main highways. In Bakersfield on a "Y" on the highway it said "stay straight on Highway xxxx". Unfortunately, the road signs for Highway xxxx turned off to the right and staying straight would put us on a different highway. We followed the road signs and not the GPS instructions and 30 minutes later after winding our way thru Bakersfield using the GPS instructions we ended up on the Highway we needed.

Guess we need to do a little more research on routes online and with maps and not just trust the GPS.
Lesson learned......

Can't wait until we have that shiny aluminum thing behind our TV!


Sent from my iPhone using Airstream Forums

[DKB_SATX]

I use GPS navigation with a belt-and-suspenders approach... I like to have an idea of the overall route so it's easier to recognize the strange choices they sometimes make. It seems to me that anytime there's a discrepancy it's always turned out better to follow the road signs and after a minute or 5 the GPS decides things are OK.

I don't have experience with GM systems specifically, but often there are routing options you can set like avoid tolls, prefer/avoid freeways, etc. Maybe the default settings need to be tweaked a little. How old is the vehicle? It may benefit from updated map data as well.

[Jim Lee]

LOL, couple of days ago my wife and I were on HWY 54 west heading to Liberal KS, specifically Seven Winds RV Park.... I was using the voice directions and what the GPS heard was "E Park, Liberal KS" I guess I dropped off the front portion or garbled it.

Anyhow we scoot merrily down the highway and follow the GPS and my wife says this doesn't look like a trailer park then we did see a trailer park but it was an abandoned park. We were in teh industrial area. we rechecked the GPS and both of us laughed. We eventually got to Seven Winds RV Park. It was a basic park but it has a lot of potential! And really good wifi!

[Protagonist]

I plot my route on Google Maps on my computer, which allows me to click-and-drag to try out different routes until I find one I like.

Then I go to my GPS, and plug in the major interchanges along that route as intermediate waypoints. That way, the GPS is always telling me the way I want to go, because I already told it the way I want to go.

Since I'm a solo traveler, doing it this way is safer than trying to read a map or even printed-out directions while driving; the GPS is reduced to being a map reader as opposed to a decision maker. And not being a person, it doesn't gripe about being demoted, either!

[RangerJay]

You lose the big picture context of where you are going when you rely totally on the GPS - it pays to have a paper map handy - not just for cities - but also for country routes - more than once we found that "Mary" was wanting us to depart the highway for gravel roads ..... when this happens we have a little chuckle that Garmin must have had the "Lewis and Clark" setting toggled on for this route ......


Jay

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by RangerJay

You lose the big picture context of where you are going when you rely totally on the GPS - it pays to have a paper map handy - not just for cities - but also for country routes - more than once we found that "Mary" was wanting us to depart the highway for gravel roads ..... when this happens we have a little chuckle that Garmin must have had the "Lewis and Clark" setting toggled on for this route ...

Had that happen to me once. Ever hear of a "corduroy" road? It's a road built by laying logs side-by-side crossways along the roadway and covering them over with dirt. I thought corduroy roads went away after the Civil War, but no… in east Texas, my GPS routed me onto one in a logging area en route to a Corps of Enginers park on Sam Rayburn Lake. So bumpy it rattled the fillings in my teeth! I checked later, and that "shortcut" only saved me ONE mile over staying on the paved roads!

That was the incident that made me start looking up my route on Google Maps first, and then programming intermediate waypoints into the GPS to keep me on the route I previously selected in Google Maps.

[Skater]

Ours led us downtown into Dayton, Ohio the other day, directing us to use an exit that is closed for construction. It was confused in several other places too. Now the map data in ours is 4 years old, so certainly that didn't help, but Google routed us the same way - I.e., it didn't know about the closed exit either. Paper maps would have been useless too. The good news about Google or the GPS is that you can just drive on and it'll reroute for you. Gotta be careful and pay attention out there!

[bwoodtx]

I use my smart phone GPS app. It appears to be more savvy than and up-to-date than a Garmin or Magellan. GPS will ALWAYS default to shortest route unless you set it differently.

Technology has made us spoiled and lazy.

I also carry an atlas in the truck. Nothing like good ole paper.

[m.hony]

I can have 3 GPS devices programmed for a certain destination. All 3 will be different, and all 3 will be wrong! I recently took a low-tech approach and purchased the 2014 Walmart Rand McNally road atlas! I am so tired of being taken the wrong way by GPS! It is a good idea in theory or principle that apparently just doesn't really work, sorta like early "multi-media" computers with a 4 gig hard drive- not enough processing power for the operating system, much less any software programs-
Google Maps and Map Quest are far more reliable if you really wanna get there without an adventure...

[RAH]

I do my route planning by hand the night before, using state atlases from Delorme, and then on the computer some combination of the 3 mapping software programs (none of them require Internet connection):
Microsoft Streets & Trips (at $20, the least expensive. Also the easiest to use)
Delorme Street Atlas USA (I don’t remember cost of this one)
Delorme Topo North America (at $100, the most expensive. Not the easiest to use, but has a feature none of the others do - you can create at profile of your route, which shows a graph of all of the elevation changes for the route).

I then write on a piece of paper the outline of the route. I take that paper and the Delorme state altas in the truck the next day. In the truck I have a Tom Tom GPS unit. I loathe every car manufacturer GPS that I have seen. The Tom Tom is 8 years old, but last year I paid the $49 to update the maps.

Then during the drive if the Tom Tom is telling me one thing, and my paper map says another, I go with the paper map.

[m.hony]

I have tried the Delorme and Microsoft Streets and Trips real time on a lap top with a GPS antenna plugged into the USB port and laid on the dashboard- a little bulky and cumbersome-
Even Delorme had me exit and then re-enter the highway, having to go through a toll both again, because it was the "shortest" route...
My gut instinct always does me better than GPS-
Sometimes, if you've never been there before, you don't even know GPS took you the wrong way- If you know the way, then you are mad and get madder every time the lady tells you to take a u-turn...

[TWA640316]

Having driven a semi for the past 10 years, the GPS is use full in alerting you when a street or turn is coming up, plus giving you a heads up on ETA to destination. As far as using it for travel, not always good. Even using the turn by turn directions on Goggle or Mapquest is hard to follow when you are driving. I always write down every Hwy or road and the direction I need to turn, then next line and do the same. A lot less confusing and easy to read when you are driving.
Stan

[m.hony]

How 'bout when GPS mis-pronounces words? That is sometimes funny.
For POW-MIA Parkway, she says "powmia".

[BAB]

Am in NH on a two week trip. My 2014 RAM GPS routed me onto a gravel road which was leading me to a bridge that was removed a year ago (I found out later). I became suspicious after 1 minute on the gravel road, pulled into someone's driveway, executed a relatively complex turn and got back to the main highway. Oh, BTW, no access to a cell signal -- so no map that way. Changed the aspect ratio on the Ram's GPS and used a bit of "dead reckoning" to get where I needed to be. Oh, I've learned this lesson before, but apparently needed to "relearn" it. The last thing I need is to drive a couple of miles on a narrow road with nowhere to turn -- and find it's a dead-end. I do NOT like backing up THAT much! (Good suggestions in some of these posts that I have now noted!)

[m.hony]

Updates?
Why bother? They are still not accurate, and they cost as much as a new GPS device!
I guess that's why GPS manufacturers started including the updates...

[MrUKToad]

I've always been a keen student of navigation and held off getting a GPS for a long time. Living in the UK I never really had need of one as maps and street signs are pretty good and I was familiar with large parts of that small country. Traveling in North America brought its own challenges with detail on maps being a little sketchy sometimes and a completely different method of signing*, plus there's my complete unfamiliarity with the entire place. So I caved in and bought a Tom Tom.

I found it brilliant for navigating in towns (turn left in 100 yards - you can't get better than that), and I love all the stats it'll give you, in real time. What I don't like is viewing its map in a 500 metre window; you never see the wider view, what you're going to be doing away up the road.

So, like others, I plan using a map, then just set the GPS as a means of confirmation and a supplier of information, like distance to go etc.

I've had it try to direct me elsewhere on occasion but I'm usually sufficiently on top of it that I can decide if the directions its supplying can be safely ignored.

For what it's worth, I bought the lifetime map upgrade for the Tom Tom and it's been pretty accurate so far.

* In Canada, when you're on the highway and you get to an intersection, very often the sign will tell you the name of the road but not where that road may take you. In the UK, the intersection signs will not only tell where you'll end up if you turn off, but how far these places are. I'm still in my period of adjustment!

[m.hony]

An old timey paper map gives you a better view of the whole route.
I hate that I can't see the entire map on the GPS screen.
I still have GPS devices. It is a love/hate relationship...

[trvlbuttrfly]

[QUOTE=m.hony;1483537]An old timey paper map gives you a better view of the whole route.
QUOTE]

Just don't buy an 'old timey paper map' at Walmart on the Big Island of Hawaii and plan to drive all the way around the island. When we did it a few years ago we didn't have any idea that a lava flow took out the road a while before then.

And don't skip the GPS because you are following someone from a wedding in the country to downtown Milwaukee like I did last weekend. Silly me, I just couldn't cross three lanes of traffic at the merge of two freeways like the 'leader' did. But...the GPS got me to a gas station, and then to the hotel. I got myself to the hotel bar!

[Minno]

Our GPS is named "Bubbles" and with good reason. She's helpful going to a specific destination once we're close. Otherwise, not so much. Chris' smart phone, named "Emma" ( for Emma Peel who is very smart!) is much better. Still, we tend to go with maps, and use the devices only in specific situations.

Kay

[Phoenix]

Several years ago, we were behind schedule due to a late campground departure earlier in the day; and we were lost in Colorado Springs. My wife was toying with a new Garmin GPS that we had bought for our Prius, and we were navigating with both the Garmin and the built-in navigation system in our Tundra.

In any case, it was dark, and it had just started snowing; so there was a little pressure to find the Costco quickly, refuel and get back on the road to Denver where we had people awaiting our arrival.

As you can probably guess, as soon as we pulled off of I-25 onto surface streets, the two GPS's started to disagree on the shortest route to the Costco (which, some time later, was further complicated by there being TWO Costcos in Colorado Springs).

The further we got from the highway, the more frantic the button pushing got on both GPS's, accompanied by conflicting directions on where and which direction to turn, and the Garmin's constant computerized comment, "RECALCULATING..." and the Tundra's instructions to "Make a legal U-turn and ...". (For those unfamiliar with these GPS's, the Garmin lets you continue on the alternate route you've initiated, and it recalculates new instructions based on your current location; while the Tundra wants you to go back where you screwed up and turned the wrong way, so it can continue on the original route that it calculated when you first entered where you thought you wanted to go.)

I'm a little hard of hearing, so I kept asking my wife "What was that?", "What did the GPS say?", What did it say to do?"; and my wife just kept faithfully repeating the Garmin and Tundra GPS's comments.

After getting thoroughly lost and close to running out of gas, and with the snow increasing in intensity with every passing minute, the frustration level was getting pretty high; and after stopping at a traffic light, with both of us just short of screaming at each other, we looked at one another, stared for a second or two, and immediately broke out laughing!

Both of us had simultaneously recalled the conference room scene from the movie "Galaxy Quest", where communications officer "Gwen DeMarco" (the equivalent of Star Trek's Lt. Uhura) realizes that her primary job is to just repeat what the computer says. "Look, I have one job on this lousy ship! It's stupid, but I'm going to do it! -- OK?!"

In any case, we now only use one GPS at a time. We use Google Earth for trip and route planning, the Garmin is for enroute instructions, and the Tundra navigation system is just for figuring out where we are when we get lost.

See "Galaxy Quest" movie clip, below:

Galaxy_Quest Excerpt - YouTube

Note: While searching YouTube, I found another clip from this movie that newbies will find amusing. After all, we were all newbies at one time; and I think each of us can recall pulling our first RV into or out of a campsite when we thought every person in the campground was scrutinizing each move we made:

Galaxy Quest - spaceship scene (hilarious awkward cringe scene) - YouTube

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