How many marriages have been saved by GPS?
By @edent
· gps technology · 5 comments · 400 words · read ~566 times.
I have a distinct and unpleasant memory of my parents not-arguing-in-front-of-the-children. It was the early 1990s and my parents had decided to take us on a road trip across America. My dad's experience of driving the sleepy high-streets of the UK suburbs had not prepared him for the terror of the Los Angeles freeway at night. He was jetlagged and my mum, bless her, can't read maps.
On the hard shoulder, of the wrong side of the road, they argued about whether the map really said that you could exit the Interstate from the left. And whether the entrance to our Holiday Inn would be clearly signposted. Meanwhile, my brother and I thought the baddies from The A-Team were going to machine-gun our car. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
My parents didn't get divorced. But we also never took another driving holiday in a foreign country.
My wife and I are both a bit crap at reading maps. But our driving holidays have been... uneventful. Google maps has calmly told us when and where to turn. When our route has been unexpectedly blocked, it doesn't complain, but serenely re-routes us. From New York to New Zealand, we've been free to drive without arguing.
In truth, I've no idea how many divorces are triggered by someone NOT READING THE BLOODY MAP PROPERLY. But I bet that number has decreased since GPS became ubiquitous and affordable.
Technology has many unintended third-order effects.
The rise of YouTube means that I now know how to rewire a plug socket, reset my boiler, properly hang a shelf, and correctly replace a door handle. No more expensive calls to a handyman! But it also means I'm over-confident, and require people to come out and fix my mistakes.
Similarly, recipe sites and tutorials encourage even the most inept cook to make something fantastic. Perhaps this has led to a surge in takeaways when the Ortolan buntings drowned in Armagnac prove too complex for the amateur chef.
It is said that mandatory motorcycle helmets reduced the number of young male organ donors. While Uber has reduced drunk driving, WhatApp has increased distracted driving.
Every little piece of technology we create goes on to have a far stranger impact than we could ever imagine.
My 2022 predictions from 2012
David Durant says:
Flashbacks to jetlagged night driving in Canada having to get used to a new left hand drive hire card and driving on the other side of the road while Google Maps routed us over and over again to a junction on the freeway that it didn’t know was closed. Eventually we had to drive away from that junction for over 30 minutes before it routed us round a different way.
Your last line reminded me of: “A good science-fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.”
About 14 years ago @MrsEmma and I moved to Sheffield and we soon realised that printouts from Multimap weren’t going to cut it if we wanted our new marriage to survive those ring roads. We got a Tomtom, it was one of the best purchases we ever made
Irene Bick says:
A word in support of map readers as opposed to SatNav. There is an official highway sign somewhere in Shropshire reading ‘SatNav error. Foot ferry only.’ For sometime before this sign was erected the SatNavs happily directed motorists down a narrow lane to a foot ferry over the Severn. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth as lorry drivers and other motorists tried to get themselves back up the lane on to the main highway. Those of us who can and do rely on maps laughed and laughed.
Ours for sure! I’d have killed him years ago if I’d had to rely on his navigating any longer!