Your cart

Poor Car Communication or Navigation Aggravation

Automobiles are getting so techie these days, they practically talk to you.  Well, they DO talk to you.  They tell you your door is ajar.  They buzz and ring and carry on when you begin to drive without your seat belt on. Their nav system has an audible voice that tells you how to get to places you aren't familiar with.  

But how good a communicator ARE they?  Often, not very! Here are two recent examples of my own. Your mileage may vary!  ROFL 

1. So they other day, a week after my parathyroid surgery, I needed to find my way to my bone specialist's office.  Two thirds of the way there the blue line that tracks the nav on my screen disappeared and Nav Lady stopped giving me audible directions. Then, suddenly as if she woke up from a nap in the passenger seat, she directed me to a series of apartment buildings in the middle of nowhere and proclaimed, "You have arrived at your destination!"  Ever arrived at your destination and had NO EARTHLY IDEA WHERE YOU ARE?!  

Reminded me of the time it told me to turn left to get to church...into a CORN FIELD!  And the time that it had me making U turns one after the other, going in circles til I was dizzy!

2. My latest example was only a few days later when I finally got a picture of something I've been trying to capture ever since we purchased the car.  The minute you pull out of the garage, the screen displays the above message as if to say, "Hey!  Read this!  What are you doing reading this?!  Eyes on the road!"  ROFL

Seems to me the makers of these navigation devices could use a bit of instruction in effective communication.  Either that or the little mouse in there fell off his wheel.  What say you? 

8 comments

  • JoJo Tabares

    Daniella, I would agree with you about that, but when you are new to an area, have brain fog from several chronic illnesses, are bad at directions since birth, and need to travel in an area a lot that isn’t newcomer friendly, it’s not realistic. I have no sense of direction I’m aware of. I get lost backing out of my own driveway. LOL I have gotten lost following Google Maps directions, my nav guide map, the navigation program, AND my dh’s directions while I was on the phone with him! I’m not kidding. In Indiana, the street names change every so many miles. They don’t always post street signs. Many of the streets are not in a grid. They are diagonally or even windy country roads. The address numbers are either missing or are unclear. There is a lot of construction in the summer months so streets you were used to taking are often closed and you need to find an alternate route. Some roads, though they continue on, are dead ends in the middle. I’d never get anywhere if I had to rely only on my own “intuition.”

  • Daniella

    We tend to rely too much on technology and then get upset when it lets us down. I try my best to use my own sense of direction first before resorting to GPS.

  • JoJo Tabares

    Oh Dana, I feel your pain! I have a hard time understanding a lot of what my car is trying to tell me. My fail safe is to call my husband and ask, "Where am I and how to I get back to !

  • Dana

    I love my GPS until I don’t. It isn’t installed in the car, but she talks me through city driving in her pleasant and always patient voice. My husband is sure he hears some impatience after you ignore her a couple times, but I haven’t heard it. Every so often she gets off, though, and tells me to “Please return to highlight route.” I’m supposed to figure out where the highlighted route is compared to where I am at WHILE I’m lost in Omaha? I think not. Fortunately, she usually thinks I’m driving across the top of the skyscrapers next to the road I’m actually on. But once she got to my destination 45 minutes ahead of me. I thought she was broken. But apparently there is a “virtual trip” feature that runs the whole route in real time. What on earth is the point of that?

  • JoJo Tabares

    Tanya, that’s one of the issues with Nav. They need to be updated from time to time. It’s not cheap either. But the iPhone apps the kids like to use don’t work for me. I can’t handle my phone and drive at the same time. But they are updated with all the latest info including traffic.

Leave a comment

← Back to Art of Eloquence Blog