Drivers Need To Forget Their GPS

HughPickens.com writes: Greg Milner writes in the NYT that an American tourist in Iceland directed the GPS unit in his rental car to guide him from Keflavik International Airport to a hotel in nearby Reykjavik, and ended up 250 icy miles away in Siglufjordur, a fishing village on the outskirts of the Arctic Circle. Mr. Santillan apparently explained that he was very tired after his flight and had "put his faith in the GPS." In another incident, a woman in Belgium asked GPS to take her to a destination less than two hours away and two days later, she turned up in Croatia. Finally disastrous incidents involving drivers following disused roads and disappearing into remote areas of Death Valley in California have became so common that park rangers gave them a name: "death by GPS." "If we're being honest, it's not that hard to imagine doing something similar ourselves" says Milner. "Most of us use GPS as a crutch while driving through unfamiliar terrain, tuning out and letting that soothing voice do the dirty work of navigating."

Could society's embrace of GPS be eroding our cognitive maps? Julia Frankenstein, a psychologist at the University of Freiburg's Center for Cognitive Science, says the danger of GPS is that "we are not forced to remember or process the information — as it is permanently 'at hand,' we need not think or decide for ourselves." "Next time you're in a new place, forget the GPS device. Study a map to get your bearings, then try to focus on your memory of it to find your way around. City maps do not tell you each step, but they provide a wealth of abstract survey knowledge. Fill in these memories with your own navigational experience, and give your brain the chance to live up to its abilities."

Comments

Re:Uh... let me think about it

[lgw]

TFS said

Could society's embrace of GPS be eroding our cognitive maps?

I delivered pizza for a few years, before GPS, and a few hours of taking orders will disabuse you of this naive notion that most people have "cognitive maps". Most people do not know where they live! They can't tell you the nearest major intersection. What they know is a sequence of steps to follow to get to their house.

"Turn left at the big tree. Turn right where the church was before it burned down. Turn left where Johnny was hit by that drunk drive last year. Look for the red house."

I'm only slightly exaggerating. I really do encourage everyone to use maps, to learn to change your "pathing" dynamically when conditions change, to know where you are not just the steps you took to get there. To quote the REM song: "Stand in the place where you work. Now face north. Think about direction; wonder why you haven't before ". Can you do it without looking anything up?

Re:Uh... let me think about it

[ShanghaiBill]

My guess is that she drove to Croatia to hookup with someone she met online, and then she made up the story about the defective GPS as a cover story. Since everyone believed the story, maybe she isn't as dumb as you think.

Re:So, now is it finally legal to...

[KGIII]

Every year, without fail, I get at least one whole bus of Canadians coming up my driveway. On GPS, and many years ago it was one, it appears to be a road. It looks like a nice little shortcut up and over the mountain that brings you back in on another road that brings you back to the main road. The bus is full of Canadians looking at foliage. We'll get back to that...

So, sure enough, they drive up and I suppose that there was a time, in the distant past, where you could have driven up my driveway and gone to this other road. However, that other road has stuff like mud holes and ruts big enough to make me think a bus might not be a good idea. I mean, yeah, I've driven on it but I'm retarded and have appropriate vehicles. Then, there's the driveway part. Yes, at some point, this was a road - it was a logging road. I've been told that it is still a road by an unhappy bus driver. I pointed out the many, many trees that go where the driveway is pointing and the lack of any road. Fortunately, my driveway is now paved so I've yet to have a stuck bus in my driveway.

Now, back to the foliage. I mean really close - but north of it. In the winter, I can take a snowmobile to Canada quicker than I can get there in a car. It's maybe 40 minutes away from Canada by car IF I count going through the border checkpoint. The snowmobile trail doesn't even really have a border checkpoint most of the time - you just cross. Yes, I must speed like a bastard to do it faster on a snowmobile but I know it can be done. It's also a good idea to point out that there are the same damned trees and same damned mountains over there.

I have yet to figure out why, exactly, they are driving up my driveway to look at foliage but I do know that they're following their GPS and I can confirm that every GPS device I've ever used, and checked, indicates my driveway is a road. As far as I know, they have done this every single year that I've been there. The first year it was not paved, that had some potential to be amusing. I guess I don't mind but it is a little shocking the first time you see a big ol' bus that says "CHARTER" on the front come plodding up your driveway and it's full of old people taking pictures.

I have no idea how to get the GPS map data changed. The Rand atlas thingy has it on there but it's indicated as dirt and stops just about where it should stop. Google and Bing both show(ed) it as a road, actually a "stub" of a road (for lack of a better word) - but not connected to the other one. I don't really mind the company but it's still a bit odd to see a bus full of old people. More than once, they've clamored out of the bus along with the driver, like it's a giant amusement park or something, to find out what's going on. Someone, somewhere, is showing their grandkids pictures of their foliage trip to Maine (that looks just like Canada) and in their deck of slides is a picture of my driveway.