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why not to follow your GPS
varian
Member Posts: 2,258 ✭✭✭✭
A Mississippi teen received a commendation Tuesday night for his heroic efforts in helping to save three teenage girls who crashed into a river and a responding police officer from drowning over the weekend.
Corion Evans, 16, jumped into the Pascagoula River in Moss Point around 2:30 a.m. Sunday after he witnessed a car drive off the I-10 boat launch, the Moss Point Police Department said in a press release Wednesday.
The teen driver of the vehicle told police that she was following her GPS and didn’t realize she was heading toward the water. After crashing into the river, the vehicle floated about 20 feet and began to sink. The three teen girls escaped to the roof of the sinking vehicle.
Comments
4 Teenagers out at 2.30 AM
I spent several weeks in southern Mississippi and Louisiana a couple of years ago. The GPS was not to be believed! Neither the car's navigation system, not the hand-held unit. The closer I was to the Gulf water, the worse it was. It would tell me to turn onto roads that did not exist. When I drove near the beach, the tracking would show that I was way out in the water.
Don't use GPS near the Border!
Going out for a coal mine inspection in West Virginia- 0430AM. GPS proudly states "Arriving at destination on your right!". I'm up on the side of a mountain- nothing to my right but air. Town I was headed for was 7 miles further.
If you ever find map and terrain disagree, you should assume terrain is correct.
Here is so. west Va., DOT has big yellow signs posted at the start of a road. They warn you not to use this road & tell you that the GPS is wrong. I tell people not to waste my time giving directions if they're going to follow their GPS. AND, don't call me when they're lost.
@chme Be careful, your destination could end up being the porch of a shanty with a boy on it playing a banjo.
You guys remember when BSR used his in NM or AZ and got tangled up with road not suitable for a semi?
I have the GPS discussion frequently with my Bullriding grandson as he crisscrosses the country side.
Mule
An update to the old saying; Close as in horse shoes and hand grenades, and GPS coordinates
Toolman- yep. Been to Haysi, Red Ash, Raven, Van Sant- all the hot spots. You get asked the "2 questions".
#1- Y'all ain't from 'round heah, are ya?
#2- Y'all got kinfolk round heah?
The answer to one of those better be yes!
I made my living off of a GPS for 8 years, driving the big rig. The GPS was right 90 percent of the time. The rest of the time, you better be on your toes.
Really .................................. like that would surprise .......... well .......... anyone ...?
kids now a days cant go anywhere without the gps.... they would die without an electronic device telling when to eat!!
neither of my children ,both in their 30s have any comprehension of how to find their way across country with a paper map . My daughters husband is 40 and he cant read a map
Last year I tried to use directions stored on my phone to navigate our trip to New Mexico. My phone 'got lost' in Dodge City KS and didn't recover until a week later when we were within 40 miles of home on the way back. I have ZERO trust in following a widget mounted to the dash of my vehicle.
I've never had the batteries die or a lost connection with a paper map.
as a kid 99% of the time we just went to tennessee to visit relatives my dad could not read or write but had a memory of the back roads and areas he had grew up in and spent time running around in that was unreal as was his sense of direction. I do remember a few times mom having a map out if we went some where unknown but that was super rare
when my wife and I 1st married we tried to do a lot of traveling going places we had nevre been having the front seat full of maps and calling out directions was common place , did we get lost sure we did but just part of the trip
then along came the GPS we jumped on the band wagon even have a couple around here some where they were amazing for the most part except when they weren't 😲
then cell phones came along with countless apps and views you are here as it tracks every thing you do and calls out in xxx miles in xx feet . or accidents road construction ahead and so on we have gotten to trust them too much and have also had to back track due to misinformation on destination and turning directions ,
as a kid I would never dreamed of such things and self driving cars 😲 get in and say take me to xxx the fastest route or tell your phone where the nearest whet ever and start my directions from here
going back to my child hood remember star trek and the crew talking to the computer and people laughed at the thought
Son uses his little screen thing-a-ma-bob all the time. He understands I don't like it but one day we were bumping from one pot hole to the next on a county gravel road when I asked him "Why aren't we using the nice smooth highway I can see just across the field?"
Sure enough, the widget was sending us 5 miles on this potholed crooked path when a 70 MPH divided highway going the same direction was less than 1/2 mile away. Those things are sometimes OK but not an end all solution.
"Phone apps" may seem great until you get out of your 'territory' at which time the app becomes less useful unless you have the big bucks nationwide service plan-just my experience.
The problems aren't in the GPS, they are in the maps that the GPS manufacturers buy. Things are getting better. I occasionally see big station wagons with satellite antennas on the roof rolling through my neighborhood. My guess is that they are working for Google Maps, but will sell maps to the GPS manufacturers.
A friend was going to update the GPS maps in his Lexus until he found out that the update would cost him $500. He bought a $200 Garmin with free updates & put it on his dash.
Neal
I started driving the big rig in 2011. At that time, I had already crossed the continent dozens of times, from British Columbia to Atlanta, and from Newport Washington, to central Georgia. I was real good with maps. Before I even rolled out in the big rig I bought a big book of road maps of North America. And every time I crossed a state line, I made sure to pull into the welcome center and get a free state road map. Great maps for free! Soon I had a collection of 3 dozen state maps, from Pennsylvania, to California.
All the while I was using a Rand McNalley truck driver GPS. Stuck it on the windshield with the suction cup. Every year, I got better and better at using the GPS. Used carefully, the GPS really is great. My last year in the truck, three years ago, I didn't even pick up a paper map, and I only used the GPS. Didn't get lost once. [You DO NOT want to take the wrong road in a 70 foot long ruck, you might not be able to turn around.]
How did we all manage without cell phones and map apps before? I remember street atlases and answering machines......vaguely......seems so long ago.
two weeks ago they removed the last 2 pay phones left standing in New York.
you could stop at the corner gas station and a guy would come out to fill your gas, then you could ask him directions..............