JumpStart by Robb Armstrong for February 13, 2014

My wife and I had an occasion where the GPS was quite literally sending us around in circles.We finally gave up and telephoned the place for directions, which is another total waste of time, because the employees only know how to get there from their house.

I’ve often heard that GPS doesn’t work well in cities with tall buildings. The signals tend to get scrambled, or bounced, or just plain confused. We tried to use ours in DC, and sometimes it didn’t know which way was up. We were lucky it didn’t tell us to drive in reverse.

I like my GPS

Poor computers, they don’t know that a route that leads you into an enclosed school parking lot or through a twisty, winding subdivision instead of onto the nearby Interstate – isn’t necessarily the best route. Unless a human being tells them. (Actual recent experiences.)

I love my GPS, but it prefers wider roads which frequently have traffic lights every couple of blocks and freeways which are often way out of the way.

I once had MapQuest telling me to turn right onto a one-way street…headed left.