Actually, I've found that a hand-held unit can be used quite safely. I have a Garmin V hand-held GPS. I mounted it with velcro on top of my Chevy Suburban's steering column, just in front of the speedometer. The Garmin's small size allows it to be placed in this location (in a Suburban, at least) without obscuring my view of the speedometer (with the exception of the odometer and any speed less than 15mph or greater than 90mph). I can see the Garmin right through the steering wheel (just like my speedometer), and it will not interfere with the airbag deployment. The LCD has a nice backlight (two brightness levels) that is harmonious with the gauge illumination provided with the GM instrument cluster. Power can be supplied by a DC adapter that plugs into one of the three auxiliary "cigarette lighter style" power sources provided on the dash. I've considered a laptop-based GPS, but I think the Garmin (or any dash-mounted GPS located within easy view of the driver) is much safer to use in a vehicle. I have only one complaint about the Garmin GPS V: its 20Mb of map memory. That's about enough memory to load a MapBase that will cover, say, eastern Massachusetts and southeast Maine & NH. If you want to switch the MapBase to another region, you have to select THAT 20mb worth of data in the MapSource application that comes with the Garmin, and then download it from your PC to the GPS via a slow (115,000bps) serial connection. Takes about 40 minutes for 18mb.
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Actually, I've found that a hand-held unit can be used quite safely. I have a Garmin V hand-held GPS. I mounted it with velcro on top of my Chevy Suburban's steering column, just in front of the speedometer. The Garmin's small size allows it to be placed in this location (in a Suburban, at least) without obscuring my view of the speedometer (with the exception of the odometer and any speed less than 15mph or greater than 90mph). I can see the Garmin right through the steering wheel (just like my speedometer), and it will not interfere with the airbag deployment. The LCD has a nice backlight (two brightness levels) that is harmonious with the gauge illumination provided with the GM instrument cluster. Power can be supplied by a DC adapter that plugs into one of the three auxiliary "cigarette lighter style" power sources provided on the dash. I've considered a laptop-based GPS, but I think the Garmin (or any dash-mounted GPS located within easy view of the driver) is much safer to use in a vehicle. I have only one complaint about the Garmin GPS V: its 20Mb of map memory. That's about enough memory to load a MapBase that will cover, say, eastern Massachusetts and southeast Maine & NH. If you want to switch the MapBase to another region, you have to select THAT 20mb worth of data in the MapSource application that comes with the Garmin, and then download it from your PC to the GPS via a slow (115,000bps) serial connection. Takes about 40 minutes for 18mb.