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promise5

Driving directions!! What is wrong with people!!

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oldwomanc6


Landmarks are a female brain type of thing. There are studies showing that females use landmarks, and males use a map "bird's eye" type of visualization. I tend much more toward the map version.

Like every other thing about studies of this sort, there is a scale with one extreme one end and the other on the other end.



With men at one end, and blondes at the other.:P
"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

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Meh, when I'm out for a drive I navigate by the sun. That and a rough idea of where you start and how long you've been going in any one direction gives me enough of an idea of where I am by dead reckoning to work out which way to turn to find somewhere I know.

Other than that, I'm still waiting on a mapping algorithm that works out a route based on the roads 'wiggle quotient' - ie, the winder and more wiggly the roads are the better. Double points for hairpins and switchbacks.

Even better yet, if the road has those signs up warning you about how many motorcyclists have been killed in the past few years... you know you're going to be on a good driving road. :)

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Visited my daughter in new York. We drove to Saratoga to a rowing meet on the river. My daughter had her smartphone and (of course the river doesn't have an actual address), so she drove and looked at her smartphone screen, entered guesses of where the river might be (while driving) looked at the screen of her smartphone as much as the road ....I got irritated and said she is basically texting while driving, (not legal). I asked her to stop and we asked a local how to get to the river park. I told my daughter to put her smartphone away. Easy. We drove right to it.

A smartphone is NOT the answer if you are driving and looking at it. And is probably illegal; or if not outright illegal, if you wreck it would almost certainly count as distracted driving.

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dpreguy

Visited my daughter in new York. We drove to Saratoga to a rowing meet on the river. My daughter had her smartphone and (of course the river doesn't have an actual address), so she drove and looked at her smartphone screen, entered guesses of where the river might be (while driving) looked at the screen of her smartphone as much as the road ....I got irritated and said she is basically texting while driving, (not legal). I asked her to stop and we asked a local how to get to the river park. I told my daughter to put her smartphone away. Easy. We drove right to it.

A smartphone is NOT the answer if you are driving and looking at it. And is probably illegal; or if not outright illegal, if you wreck it would almost certainly count as distracted driving.



As a bicycle commuter, I'm not a fan of people using their phones while driving. Distracted driving can indeed be a problem. That being said, I'm not so sure that the distraction of being lost is not even worse than the distraction of using the phone.
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A smartphone is NOT the answer if you are driving and looking at it.



To be fair, in that scenario it doesn't matter what the device is (smartphone, purpose built GPS or even paper map) she's just using it wrong. A smartphone is fine if you use it like you should use any other gps - enter the destination before you start driving, put the audible instructions on and have a mount for it.
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I was given directions once that included the phrase

"Turn right at the tree with the broken branch"


:ph34r:

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
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quade

There are several schools of thought about directions; landmarks, pathing, GPS coordinates . . . ALL have their uses.

You seem to dislike pathing and prefer landmarks. Okay, but landmarks can change in a heartbeat and weather can make them difficult to see.

Your best bet is to be fluent in more than one so you can cross check and verify.

Nice analysis. My experience is that women tend to be landmark navigators (my wife and daughters) and men tend to be route navigators. YMMV.

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Directions to my house is real simple. Get off the interstate highway, go east on US highway, turn left on XXX road, go about 2 miles, last house on the right before XXX Circle.

They'll usually blow past our driveway but turn around at XXX Circle... :D

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

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