GPS foolishness

I don't generally like using a GPS. I learned how to drive in the era of paper maps. First you had a poster sized book with dozens of maps, all organized by what state you were in. Later, we printed directions from Mapquest and hoped there weren't any detours or other diversions that would take you off your inkjet delivered guidance.

My wife had a saying. "Oh, I got lost here once"

When we first moved to Buffalo, she used that phrase a lot. I bought her a standalone GPS for Christmas that year. (The phones still flipped back then), and she used it to stop saying that old phrase. I, however, would go online and look at a map, figuring out which turns I needed to take to get anywhere, then just remember, finding my way around. One occasion, we needed to get to someone's house. I had never been there before and didn't have a lot of time. She put the address in, and so I followed it.

It took me on some wild loop circling town until we arrived. When I saw the cross streets, I realized I could have taken a far more direct route in half the time. I opted to not trust these things until they worked out the problems.

And so I did, at least until they started adding problems.

I drove my son out to some event last summer, and wound up stuck in a traffic jam because of an accident up the road. Many others at the event didn't know about the accident, only that their GPS routed them around the area. I hadn't realized they were doing that now, and decided to join in. The phones stopped flipping long ago, and now I had a built-in GPS so whatever. I don't use it for most drives, but for new locations or longer drives (even if I know the way) I just decided to use it. It started warning me about speed traps, too.

Nice

But then, when I knew the way and all I wanted was a warning about a speed trap, I found it was trying to direct me on some circuitous path that made little sense, even if it did bring me where I wanted. Surely there couldn't be a traffic accident every time. So once, I just ignored it and went the way I always did.

Nothing. No accident, no road construction. Turns out the little bugger was picking some 'eco friendly' way that was supposed to use less gas or something. Adding 10 minutes to my drive isn't going to do that, I drive old cars - I am burning way more than I should be.

Now I have to find that setting and fix it.