Retro Les: GPS takes wonder from road

Les Minor, columnist
Les Minor, columnist

On an excursion to North Central Arkansas a couple of weeks ago, I began reflecting on how trip planning had changed over the years. I had just missed a turn and was reviewing a copy of driving directions I had printed off the internet before leaving.

The most difficult part of the task was reading the fine print. Other than that, I was only a mile off course and the detour was easily correctable.

And what's a mile here or there when a guy is on a road trip.

At least that's the way it used to be.

I'm mostly old school. I'm comfortable using maps, have a good sense of direction and don't often use a GPS, although the family has a smartphone that can act like one.

To me, using a GPS is kind of like asking for directions, which is the equivalent of cheating, and which flies in the face of most male instincts. It's just not done.

I grew up traveling a certain way and haven't adapted to the latest technological advances. This is not an apology. It is more of an anthem.

Today, you can plug an address into a GPS and get directions to anywhere that exists on the map, actually the globe. You can listen your way to your destination, usually supplemented by a constantly evolving interactive map.

(Since this was written, most new vehicles have GPS in the dash. There is an all-knowing digital screen and a pleasant voice that tells you where to go. It is much cooler tech than what the KITT Trans Am had in the early 1980s television series Knight Rider. The future almost always eclipses our early attempts to portray it.)

Cool, but that's not the way I grew up.

Those of us who were children in the 1950s and '60s had a lot of exposure to maps, though not always useful early on. A globe, not much bigger than a basketball, introduced us to the idea of Spaceship Earth. You could put a finger on where you lived, where the communists lived, where the poles where, and you couldn't miss the oceans if you tried.

Stretching across the top of practically every classroom chalkboard was a pull-down map of the world or the United States, or sometimes multiple maps. These were often topographic, laying out mountain ranges and rivers and other geographic features, and sometimes major cities. These were useful for seeing relationships between places, but for actually traversing the terrain, not so much.

The maps of distinction during this time resided in the gloveboxes of most American cars, usually in multiples. They were the folding, accordion maps that you could get for free at filling stations across this great country.

Once, the United States was flush with filling stations and nary a convenience store. Today, the landscape is littered with convenience stories and nary a full-service gas station. And those once-free maps now start at about $5 and climb quickly.

These were the maps that moved America, and anything they didn't address you would just have to figure out for yourselves. You could spread it out on the hood or quarter it into a manageable unit and have your wingman or wing wife call out directions.

It would tell you the names of upcoming towns, distances between towns, types of roads, scenic routes, state and federal parks and monuments. Pen, scratch pad and a little elementary school math and you could even figure your estimated time of arrival.

All these techniques are now obsolete. Now, your onboard computer will instantly calculate and recalculate trip data and ETA based on your actions, how your speed vacillates and how many bathroom breaks you take.

But once, a folding map and a little common sense were about the best friends you could have on the road. To kick it up a notch, you might consider an atlas of road maps or the Mobil Travel Guide.

But let's not get nostalgic.

There are certainly some advantages to the newest technology. For example, it may know more about roadwork and detours and delays than you do. That's useful. It may allow you to pay more attention to the driving; it may suggest a different route.

On the other hand, you don't have to pay much attention to road signs and billboards and other visual cues. On a trip to San Antonio last summer, using a cellphone GPS, I moved effortlessly in and around the city and to its various attractions without missing a beat. But I never mentally collected the kind of driving data that comes with having to purposefully pay attention to what you're doing.

If I had wanted to retrace my steps without the GPS, I would have been lost.

(But I do, as a driver, now enjoy the scenery more. If the GPS is giving audio directions. I'm not looking for highway markers and exit signs. Those are in my ear. I can now pay more attention to the ins and outs of the traffic flow and the immediate surroundings. GPS apps now are more interactive. You can get updates from fellow drivers on traffic delays, police positions, accidents, cars on the side of the road and where the next travel plaza or barbecue joint is located. Some will even recommend detours when it spots trouble ahead.

In today's world, sometime the bigger challenge is managing the technology rather than the trip. On a recent sojourn to Little Rock I couldn't figure out the audio function. The map was rolling forward , but it wouldn't talk to me. I pulled over and tried to figure it out, but failed. And in congested downtown traffic where decisions have to be made quickly, I was lost.

I got found. I figured out how to get where I was going. But like most crutches, learning to live without it is a challenge.)

Reliance on a GPS is not as dangerous as talking on a cellphone when driving, but it can be a distraction, particularly if you start arguing with it. It can be mindlessly assertive.

(And, if you are reliant on the visual aid, it means you might be spending too much time looking at the dash or a device and not the road.)

Somewhere between the foldout map and the GPS, internet sites with driving directions filled a void. On MapQuest, for example, you can enter a starting address and an ending address, and the program will plot the map and give you step-by-step instructions each time you change directions or roads. It also will tell you how many total miles and an estimated ETA.

These type of sites have gotten more sophisticated over the years, to the point you can plug in miles per gallon and the cost of a gallon of gas, and it will tell you how much your trip will cost. It can also tell you were gas stations, restaurants and motels are along your route and even help you connect with those places. Nice, but lacking a sense of adventure.

(I've stopped using MapQuest. Most online search engines can give you basic trip information by just typing in your starting point and destination. The computer in my car and the computer in my cell phone are my go to tools for travel.)

In the future, maybe way in the future, you won't have to pay attention at all. You'll be able to sleep as you cruise.

There are already smart cars in the development stage that drive themselves. Just punch in coordinates and sit back for a fuss-free, stress-free ride. I know this because I saw it demonstrated on the television. (Not in what's left of my lifetime, of course, but it can get done.)

(Boy was I wrong here. It's happening right now in limited trial, but the expectation is that production will ramp up quickly-in my lifetime and before!)

Technology is great, but with each step forward, it takes much of the mystery and magic out of the road trip.

Back in the 1980s, I once interviewed a Texarkana pilot who flew a cropduster from here to Chile using a National Geographic map on his knee. My kind of guy. The two-week trip ended up taking several months, including some time in jail, but he returned with stories enough to last a lifetime.

An extreme case, for sure, but a GPS would have taken all the fun out of flying.

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