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I hardly use GPS. Usually, I'll have mapped out where I need to go ahead of time (using Mapquest or Google Maps on my computer). My car doesn't have GPS and I don't own a Garmin so I would have to use my phone. Unfortunately, I can only see my phone when I have reading glasses on. I can't wear reading glasses while driving. I have Waze on my phone that I have used a few times, however.
GPS has its pluses and minuses. I find people rely on it too much. For example, my office's location is not accurately described on GPS or particularly easy to find. It is not hard to find if you follow directions people explain to you, but people will insist on relying on GPS and will inevitably end up in the wrong place. You still have to use your common sense like looking for the address information. I've had the GPS take me to somewhere totally incorrect before, such as one time I ended up at a middle school when I was supposed to be at a large resort for a conference. They weren't even close (walking distance) although the resort hotel was tall enough that I could see it in the distance.
Locally I might still need the GPS to know where something is but I more or less ignore most of the directions because 85% of the roads they inevitably select are under construction or a highway (under construction). I have to use my phone since I don't have a navigation system in my car.
One thing I like about GPS is that if I decide to not follow it, it quickly refigures the route. I use that often because it keeps tying to put me on a toll road that I don't want. I don't check "avoid toll roads" because I do use another toll road that is cheaper.
I suppose you think it's cute to be so lofty and condescending, but I don't think anyone here has said anything about being fearful. We just don't care for them or find them particularly useful, because most of us know how to use maps and compasses and are comfortable using them.
So do you drive around with an unfolded map in front of you, covering everything, and use one hand to hold the compass to see what direction you are going? I don't think so. But a GPS can be useful WHILE YOU ARE DRIVING! It can tell you what lane to be in before an exit comes up, by telling you which direction that exit it on (especially useful when an exit splits numerous times before it reaches the next highway or surface street).
Towns on paper maps are little dots/circles that have NO indication of streets or exits. And if you're following a paper map into a larger town or city that has a SEPARATE map for that town or city, then you have to, while driving, change to the other map and read it. It's distracting MUCH more than a phone or GPS device is. And if you're coming in an interstate to a city, you have to pull over to the side, change to the city map, find the exit you want and guess how that exit works from a square on a line, and then try to get there whole reading it on your lap or on the seat next to you.
I've done enough trips in the old days with paper maps to know that GPS is a godsend for people that drive new places on a regular basis.
"Paper maps are like outdoor outhouses. They were fine back in the day when there was nothing better, but like modern indoor plumbing, there is now something better, and only fools complain about the better way."
So do you drive around with an unfolded map in front of you, covering everything, and use one hand to hold the compass to see what direction you are going? I don't think so. But a GPS can be useful WHILE YOU ARE DRIVING! It can tell you what lane to be in before an exit comes up, by telling you which direction that exit it on (especially useful when an exit splits numerous times before it reaches the next highway or surface street).
Towns on paper maps are little dots/circles that have NO indication of streets or exits. And if you're following a paper map into a larger town or city that has a SEPARATE map for that town or city, then you have to, while driving, change to the other map and read it. It's distracting MUCH more than a phone or GPS device is. And if you're coming in an interstate to a city, you have to pull over to the side, change to the city map, find the exit you want and guess how that exit works from a square on a line, and then try to get there whole reading it on your lap or on the seat next to you.
I've done enough trips in the old days with paper maps to know that GPS is a godsend for people that drive new places on a regular basis.
"Paper maps are like outdoor outhouses. They were fine back in the day when there was nothing better, but like modern indoor plumbing, there is now something better, and only fools complain about the better way."
I'm sure there are people who curse the electric starter on today's vehicles and wish they could still get one with a hand crank. What surprises me is that this thread was started by a Millennial (I'm assuming, by the screen name). They are usually very accepting of modern technology.
After doing over 16,000 appraisals all over Los Angeles, I know the city very well. I don't ever use the "turn by turn" directions, but I do find my dash-mounted GPS map to be helpful when I'm in a neighborhood and want to see the neighboring street names. To be fair, however, not many people have such an in-depth knowledge of their city outside their own neighborhood. My kid can't find anything without his Google maps.
Oh, and I still carry a Thomas Guide paper map just in case. I'm old.
What surprises me is that this thread was started by a Millennial (I'm assuming, by the screen name). They are usually very accepting of modern technology.
Be that as it may, I have yet to see a GPS that gives even remotely logical, rational directions. The turn-by-turn prompts in most GPS's make me do a facepalm and say "WTF!?". The grating mechanical voice tone doesn't help, either. It's comparable to using machine translation on a classic book, like "Tale of Two Cities". Yes, you can get the point across on what the book is about, but many foreign-translated phrases will only frustrate the reader, because the translation algorithm neglects to factor in many subtleties. Same with GPS software.
Been actively playing with GPS since the 80s. Just one of the important things in life. I intially got started as I did a good bit of long haul sailing. Mostly coastal but often 1000 miles or more. I can, or at least could, do celestial at the graduate school level. But you still had the problem. You did not enter the harbor at Bahia de Tortuga on Baja at night. You mill around in a big circle until dawn. With good radar and a big moon you might be able to do it but still somewhat dangerous...and rocky dangerous. The sort of coast that kills you.
Even in the early days it immediately changed nautical navigation. Had its own problems...until GPS how would one have known that all the maps in the area of Purerto Vallarta were off by a quarter mile in the bad direction?
In the early 90s put a GPS and radio rig in SOs car so when she got lost on the 405 on a rainy Friday she could call in on the car phone and get bail out instructions. That used an amateur radio system that had map tracking way back in those days.
Nowadays I often end up with trips diagonally across Las Vegas. Bad thing to do in heavy traffic times. The Google navigation is a great help. There are two major and dozen of minor variants as to how to go driven by where the traffic is bad and how bad. Googler sorts it out almost all the time. I am never really lost as I have the direction sense and navigation fluency. But I have no way to know which of the suspect interchanges has gone to hell. And it has taught me a couple of clever bypasses that are of the sort we used in Long Beach years ago on the 405.
Locally we dead reckon everything. But GPS is the bailout. Off on a listing call last Saturday and we could not find the place. Very local we knew exactly where it was...but we had the wrong one of a pair of related tracts. Really good fooled when the gate code worked. After driving around in circles or a few minutes we realized none of the street names matched. Then we weit to GPS. 4 minutes later we were there...it was the other side of the main drag.
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