[LINK] Another GPS/human error story - GPS usage in Au compared to USA, Europe

[Ash Nallawalla]

Last month I drove all over Central and Southern Florida with the help of a
Magellan GPS gifted to me a year ago, so its map was at least 3 years old.
My daughter had been taken by ambulance from a Disney park and I retrieved
the rental car and tried to get to the hospital. 

The GPS told me to get off at exit 14A. Normally it alerts you at a few
points 2 miles from the exit but sometimes the ding-dong alert doesn't sound
until you have taken the exit. I saw Exit 14 and thought that 14A must be
next. Ding Dong, just past the exit. The next exit was 15 and a fair way
down, so I got off and was directed back on the same freeway going back. For
some reason I thought I must have missed 14A last time, so again when 14
loomed, I drove past. I finally exited at 13 and turned around, ignored the
GPS and finally got back on track.

Cheap GPSs have a smaller set of POIs (points of interest, supplied by
Yellow Pages USA and others), so you could be directed to a distant
drugstore while you go sailing past one much closer. This leads to unfair
criticism by some people. Roads and exits change often enough to cause at
least one confusion per trip.

Cheap GPSs are sometimes cheap because they are an old model being closed
out and their latest map is out of date. Caught me out here. :(

Ash

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robin Whittle

> Since people can't very well fill their cars with up-to-date street
directories of
> wherever they are going when travelling out of town, its not surprising
that
> GPS devices are so popular.
> 
> The generally lower adoption of street directories in the USA has been
> evident, I think, for years - in the form of many websites having maps and
> very extensive instructions on how to get to the
> organization's physical location from various directions.   Maps have
> become more common in Australia due to the ease with which a map can be
> added to a website, but I think no-one here bothers with paragraphs of
> which roads and turns to take as I have seen in some US sites.