No - why would it? As mentioned above, I am looking where I am going (map apps don’t warn you about children running into the steet, deer crossing the road, cops laying in wait to give you a ticket etc…), and can do a better job of that if I have clear directions from a navigation app rather than notes scribbled on a napkin or half-remembered verbal directions.
Cool. Just wondered.
Not worth asking the person whose house you were in, who hosted your kid’s b-day party, and who you just spent time with cleaning up after the party, whether there was anything you ought to know about getting out of their subdivision and back to the main road?
Me, I think tech is great for any number of things. But when the opportunity presents itself to ask a simple question of a real human with likely direct knowledge, I’ll likely continue to do so. Whether or not I choose to subsequently consult tech.
(Not really relevant to anything, but I’m curious about the manner of death - drowning. I know “creek” can describe a wide variety of bodies of water, but it would have to be a pretty big creek to submerge a Jeep. I think the car fell about 20’. Has nothing to do with the driver being negligent, but I wonder if he was knocked unconscious and/or if the car flipped, causing him to drown.)
A number of years ago, the GPS I had at that time directed me to turn left. When I did so, I realized that I was turning onto a one way street. Unfortunately a cruiser that happened to see me realized it also, so on came the dome lights. When I explained what happened, he was less peeved at me for what he at first thought was an intentional act on my part. Nevertheless, he informed me that, no matter what a GPS may say or, for that matter, a passenger in your car, the operator of a motor vehicle is always responsible for the decision and, subsequently, the action taken.
He let me off with a warning, but he could have ticketed me.
You just won’t give it a rest, will you? Look, you do you. However, you are in no position to judge what strategies make ME a safer driver. I am, and I assure you, I fully use those strategies.
Your point is well made. We cannot infer that this driver was necessarily inattentive or imprudent based solely on the outcome, as though this outcome would be impossible for a responsible driver.
But we can’t assume the opposite either. Although we’re all susceptible to the same cognitive illusions, it still obviously matters how attentive we are. The driver may have contributed by inattentive and irresponsible driving, he may not. I think we just don’t know.
Hey - and you do you as well. So long as we both stay out of the creek, that’s fine.
(Always looking for an opportunity to share some good music - Billy Strings - Meet Me at the Creek. Meet me at the creek, grab a beer and tap your feet - indeed! :D)
I’ve heard stories since the beginning about GPS dumping cars where they don’t belong. It does not make me rethink my practices with GPS, no.
Mistakes happen. The driver drove off the broken bridge by mistake. I mean, that is my best assumption.
Its easy to look at some incident where the mistake has a serious outcome and just think that it’s a mistake you would never make yourself, because you would just do X. But nobody is immune to mistakes. Nobody is so immaculately careful that they never make mistakes, in fact I’d say anyone who believes they are immune to mistakes is probably more at risk of them, because they believe something that is simply not reality.
Sure, being careful reduces risk, but it doesn’t reduce it to zero.
Hindsight can lead people to make really smug judgments. I published a video in which I was walking on grass and I tripped and fell when my foot went into a rabbit hole that was completely concealed by long grass. You couldn’t see it and you cannot see it in the FPV footage, but I still got people telling me I was careless, they wouldn’t have tripped, they would have been more alert and in one case, that it wouldn’t have happened if I had probed the ground ahead of every footstep with a stick (technically true, but who does that? Nobody, but people who had the footage of the mistake step served up to them just imagined a clever way that someone could have avoided it)
(I fell flat onto soft ground BTW. It was not an injurious event BTW. The worst outcome was grass stains on my jeans)
Its easy to say you would have avoided a mistake that has been made obvious to you, but can anyone here honestly tell me they have never once in their life made a mistake? Why didn’t you avoid that one?
The Adventurer’s Guild strongly denounces this statement and reminds all adventurers that poking the floor, walls, and ceiling ahead with a 10 foot pole is always recommended. Remember: only you can prevent maulings by mimics, trappers, cloakers, ropers, and scarves enchanted to strangle you.
I’m not going to say it’s not worth asking - but I probably wouldn’t think to ask. Because to the extent I thought about it , I’d probably assume the person told me about anything I needed to know that they knew about. Just like people normally tell me that a street they know I will need to use to get to their house is closed for road work. And if they don’t know I will need that road, they probably won’t tell me about the bridge or road work even if I ask.
I haven’t checked yet, but I wonder how many of the comments under that Mentour Pilot video are:
“They just should/shouldnt have…”
“I would have just…”
I made that mistake a few years ago when I wasn’t using my GPS. I looked at my motel’s location on Google Maps, and told myself I didn’t need GPS to find my way there. All I needed to do was exit Highway 1 in Santa Cruz, follow the signs to the Boardwalk, and then my motel was one block over. So I did that, got to an area I recognized (I’d been there before, but it was a long time ago), and thought “Ah, I know where I am; the motel is that way!” Except the street the motel was on was one way, and I was approaching from the wrong direction. But I was so focused on finding the motel I didn’t notice the signs. After driving the wrong way down the one way street for a short distance I realized something looked wrong, pulled over, made a U-turn after oncoming traffic had passed, and drove around the block to get there the right way.
Actually, I bet if I had been using GPS it probably would have directed be to drive around the block to begin with, and I wouldn’t have made that error.
I agree, it’s impossible to know whether or not the driver was inattentive (unless there’s a record that he was texting at the time or something like that). But some people seem to be arguing that the fact the the driver was following GPS directions means he must have been being inattentive, which isn’t necessarily true either. If anything the GPS probably did contribute to some confirmation bias that the road was passable.
While I wish @Dinsdale could be more kind about the way he expresses his opinions, he’s not entirely wrong about GPS. I don’t like it either, but I had to find out if there was any evidence that GPS makes you a worse driver.
And yes, there seems to be evidence of that. One AAA study found that using satnav is approximately as dangerous as texting while driving. People who use voice directions as opposed to a visual map fare better as they are not taking their eyes off the road.
Then there’s the notion of turning off one’s brain. Well over time GPS users are (probably) strengthening the part of the brain that follows directions while weakening the part of the brain that understands spatial navigation (the hippocampus.)
My personal opinion is that in this case, on a dark and rainy night with a bridge out, this guy probably would have drove into the creek whether he was using GPS or not. You just can’t see very well in those conditions, and by the time he could see anything it would probably be too late to stop.
Based on what I have learned, I plan to change my GPS behavior. Activate voice control and turn off the visuals and try in that way. And look at where I’m going on a map before I go there. And maybe, Og willing, eventually learn how to get places without any help. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get to a point where I never use GPS but I think I can take steps to decrease its use.
I rarely use GPS when driving. Actually, not sure I ever have. Instead, if I don’t know where I’m going, and don’t figure I can figure it out while driving, I prefer to look at a map before I get in the car to get an idea of where my destination is with relation to whatever I’m aware of. If I need any specific info such as exit number or tricky turns, I jot them down on a piece of paper. Not necessarily better or worse than what anyone else does, but works for me.
Occasionally when my wife is driving, she’ll have GPS on her phone. We both dislike the spoken directions, so she invariably asks me to give directions from her phone. Drives me crazy when the map starts spinning and zooming. But that’s just me. Could probably figure out how to stop that, but I don’t care enough about the program and don’t use it frequently enough to bother with getting into the settings.
Recently I was amused as my wife slowed as we approached a controlled intersection, and the GPS said “turn in 10 feet.” I thought it terribly helpful, as I was just about to encourage my wife to hop the curb and drive across the empty field before the intersection! 
Didn’t test it to see if it kept adjusting down to single digit feet and/or inches… I can understand they have to program it to a certain degree of accuracy, but the idea that that info would be useful to anyone amused me.
I am 100% not going to say that GPS is always safe - but I am going to say that a fair comparison would be to what people did pre GPS, Pre GPS no one was entering their destination or looking up restaurants while driving - but I’m not at all sure that looking at the GPS map is different from looking at a paper map / written directions, or that suddenly turning in response to GOS voice directions is different from doing it in response to directions from a passenger.
I guess I should admit my bias - while growing up, my dad worked for Rand McNally. So maps (and books) were always a kinda big deal in our household. I’ve long been interested in the history of maps, navigation, tracking, as well the benefits to increasing your awareness of your surroundings. So, yeah, I’ve read quite a bit suggesting there are mental benefits to be derived navigating by oneself. But - of course - all you GPS users are accomplishing fantastic mental tasks while freeing up your grey matter from such mundane tasks!
Like I said, just acknowledging a personal bias. BTW - Rand McNally’s decision that GS was just a fad that wouldn’t last likely ranks up there with the all-time industrial boners!
That makes sense. I always use voice directions - looking at the map does not seem nearly as safe to me.
ETA: Looking at the article, it does NOT show any direct evidence that GPS is “ruining” our brains - it does speculate that certain skills may be atrophying. But it’s not like any scientific study has been carried out. In addition, no doubt our collective abilities to make soap and candles at home, ride horses, sharpen spears, and hunt wild game have all atrophied. I’m sure my brain looks different from that of Og the Caveman, who had all sorts of abilities that are lost to me. I’m willing to make the needed trade-offs.
In any case, I think the most useful study would be on whether the increase in GPS usage has led to a decrease in vehicle crashes. I don’t know if such studies exist or how robust they are. Maybe I’ll see what I can find.
E (again) TA: A quick Google search suggests that studies tend to demonstrate that use of a GPS increases the number of traffic accidents.
Cool! I’ve flown into and out of Presque Isle airport. And survived. Of course, it was in the summer.
Yeah. at most 10% driver, 10% Google, the rest the dudes responsible for maintaining that bridge/road.
Sure some. But let’s not get into victim blaming.
Before setting off on a trip, and setting my Waze or Google, I look at maps first.
I think “using” satnav is a misleading summary of that study as stated, and I’m not sure what it does say is justified. It says that programming a GPS or while driving is dangerous. Of course, but you can now do that through voice commands with your eyes on the road. And the only thing it claims is dangerous while following GPS directions is making radical late maneuvers to make a turn in response to voice commands.
None of their claims in that study tell you what the control is. Dangerous relative to what? Are they assuming that people who fumble with paper maps always pull of the road to do so? Following GPS voice commands while keeping your eyes on the road is surely much safer than looking at a paper map while driving. And with a GPS I’m much less inclined to make a radical last minute maneuver to make a turn, because I know that the GPS will immediately just tell me the easiest way to get back on my route.