GPS or good old maps?

But here's what your missing... the GPS oftentimes will route you the long way around, when there is a perfectly acceptable shorter route. (This is mainly when getting off a freeway onto surface streets, but does happen in rural areas, too.) That's often hard to see on the GPS, but easy on a map. Yes, it usually requires some local knowledge, but that's something we all tend to pick up quickly in cities we work in.

The other issue is a little more complex, and not as obvious.

I am a very visual person, to the point that I can talk people into places I haven't been in years, with incredible recall, but only after I look at the map. It gives you a frame of reference, enabling you to keep your bearings. It is much more difficult to keep track of where you are if you are blindly following prompts from the GPS if you don't have that reference frame. Now, if all goes well, that isn't a problem. But if you miss a turn, or find an inaccuracy in your GPS, and need to get reoriented onto the proper path, it is quite easy to lose track of exactly where you are. And especially in the case of a GPS (and often Google,) database error, it's not going to be much fun to get proper directions from your customer when you really don't have your bearings. Or you'll be the guy who makes the famous "The GPS told me to..." statement. By not having established a mental picture of where you are, you have possibly put yourself at risk of being completely lost.

It's like this: There have been times in the pre-GPS era where I have found myself where I didn't know specifically where I was, usually because of an unexpected detour or closure. But I have never been in a spot where I couldn't pull out the map and show you roughly where I was, and which way I was headed, and how I was planning to get back to my route. You're not going to have that ability when you're blindly following the GPS prompts. Try and get directions into someplace from a GPS only guy; you might as well ask the best way to Alpha Centuri, because they ain't got a clue!

You see, GPS is a tool to help you make decisions, and too many of you rely on it to do all the thinking for you! And if you don't see the problem with that, we have a lot larger issues to deal with than over-reliance. You want to be a good driver? You want to make it to millions of safe miles? Those of us who do don't know the bare minimum about our routing, we use every bit of information we can that might help us if we find we're on the wrong side of the high-velocity mixing device when it interfaces with the excrement boundary. And trust me, if it hasn't happened to you yet, it will!

 

at 60 and never being west of Chicago until 2 years ago
my mind is the least reliable tool I have
google earth helps me the most get a lay of the land and what to look for as I approach new places

many shippers and recievers addresses are the office and truck entrance might be on a different street entirely

 

why would i be asking for directions when i just got there.

i'm in evanston, going to salt lake on the 80. now i need to go to provo. on the 15 south.

in a po dunk town you might come in and out the same way. but in the city. not a likely scenario.

 

When you go toUtah. You don't even need a local city map. as long as you have the address you can find anyplace.

 

your first paragraph depends on what gps you have. what you speak of is why i didn't keep my rand longer then 2 weeks. my pcmiler runs circles around rand. it routes the same as truckmiles.com. rand always wanted the longer way around.

there have been times however when i pull out the phone and use google. if there's a shorter route i'll follow that untill my pcmiler kicks in the new route that it didn't pick up.

here's one of the best reasons why gps will always rule over atlas.

it's summertime. that means construction. our all mighty atlas got us to town. not a problem. BUT NOW. we're here. in the middle of the night. no one is around to call cuz they're all in bed. AND, the freeway is closed due to construction. DETOUR. now you're really screwed cuz you have no idea where your at. and no place to park to figure it out. (say los angeles). where there isn't ALWAYS a sign to show you the way.

thank goodness for gps.

pirates and cowboys may have found there way around the world for hundreds of years by simply using a map. but they didn't have to worry about population and construction. and the milions of miles of roads that we have today. they also didn't have to worry about going to a certain spot. they could go anywhere to any general area.

 

you don't travel utah much outside of salt lake city. do you?

even i use my gps on the outskirts of the city. and in the other counties that i don't frequent much.

 

every town,village or city is on the grid. You don't need a map. Or can't you figure out the grid. I go to Utah all the time. It's so easy, Mikey could do it.

 

a good trucker gps is great imo
oftentimes it will save you from missing turns
and having to turn around in some un truck friendly spots
may not be the shortest route
but i prefer to stick to interstate as much as i can
and if you dont have much time to catch a reload in oh say california
los angeles or some such
real useful to me
not perfect 4 sure
but most of the time it at the very least puts me on the right road
i love mine
garmin and copilot work good for me
no trip planning
just enter address and blast off

 

what grid?????

you said address. you can find any place. no need for a map.

finding any town is no different in utah then any other state. and finding address are just as complicated as any other state.

finding address MAY be the easiest in salt lake. due to it's numbering system going each direction. depending on where your going. but the rest of the state is just as difficult as the rest of the country.

 

The whole state is on the grid system every city has a temple where that is center and main. And it goes out from there. You go 3 blocks west of the temple.. That's 300 west. Or 100 blocks north. That's 10000 north.. It's easy and you never need a map, GPS or anything. You can figure if you need to make a left or right turn.