I’ve had my first car nav experience in December and had very similiar reactions. I am totally convinced that they are going to cause more accidents in the short term as people get them but aren’t used to having this new distraction in the vehicle.

“All of the comments”? Four comments is “all”? And one of them is an auto-comment? And then you start ragging on your regular readers! <nudge, nudge>, while you are cruising around town in a tricked-out ride…..I fear our gal j has gone Hollywood!

A couple of things 1) isn’t it a new BMW that is totally voice activated — isn’t it supposed to be pretty hilarious — that would keep your eyes on the road… only you sometimes just need to SEE the map 2) there’s been tons of research on this for fighter and helo pilots. Questions of the human engineering of HUDs — either way it diverts driver attention away from the road and should not be used while moving. I think some DC cops even had accidents while using their computers while driving, but I could be remembering wrong.

Maybe I could have expained this better in the text above. The icon on the map is similar to an arrow. The point of the arrow seems to relate to the front of the car. Based on the position of the point of the arrow and what the system was showing us on the map, I thought the system knew which way we were facing. Otherwise, the map would have been oriented differently and/or the point would have been in the opposite direction. (Now I can’t remember if the point actually moved.) When we did turn around, the map would change to reflect the direction we were moving.

If I remember correctly, the screen always scrolled from the top to the bottom, no matter what direction we were headed. The system would have to know which way we were facing and how we were headed in order to scroll the map properly.

I don’t understand how it would have “forgotten” the direction of the car unless the driver somehow shut down the system. In one case, the driver pulled over to the side of the road to get driving directions from the system. During this time, the system was fully operational. Since we had just pulled over, it knew what direction we had been heading and it seems like it should have “remembered” that information. It drew the line behind us instead of advising us to turn onto a side street to join the route a block to the north.

In the other case, the car and perhaps the system had been shut off for a few hours. When we got in again, the map and icon matched what we were presently facing. Since the map and arrow were oriented properly, I thought it knew which way we were facing. It could have just been operating from what the screen had last shown, perhaps.

The system might also be programmed to assume at certain points that cars are in a driveway and can easily change direction. I don’t remember whether the map showed driveways. We were not in any driveways at either of those points. It could also operate under the assumption that drivers will turn around rather than turning on a side street.

Now that I’m thinking about this in more detail again and pondering what Dan wrote, I think I need to ride in the car again to see how the navigation system works. ha ha ha "Hey, can I ride in your car again?"

At least it’s not the kind of system that constantly tells us we’re lost …

The reason that GPS can’t show you which way you’re facing at first is that it only knows position, not direction. It has to wait for you to move so it can figure out your direction from the difference in two location readings. Some GPS units have a compass built in to solve this problem.

Nice to read somewhere atleast the talkabout on the car-nav-systems! I totally agree with you. The position of the Screen is important, and so is the ability to learn to map it up while you are trying to concentrate on driving. Its a bit risky, though. Hopefully, the car manufacturers and the designers alike would come up with something more car-navigation-friendly. But I still love my mapquest maps and can’t drive without it!