At least, I tried to trick the new TomTom GPS Navigator we picked up today.
I tried, and tried, took wrong turns and ignored every direction, waiting for it to at some point say … I quit.
But, it was too good. It was a little slow at some points to tell me of how to take another turn, and suggested that I took the 3rd exit at some non-existent roundabout here locally.
It was also cut off a few times, such as “Turn Rig..” – heh, I ignored it.
It suggested I take an illegal turn today too, travelling down the wrong side of a local road, to go up a street that was essentially left turn only, not a good state to be in.
I only wanted to get this because I plan on doing a few trips in unfamiliar territory, and after our, well, OK zoo trip, I figure that I’ll need something giving directions and the ability to assess hundreds of thousands of streets in a few minutes.
The TomTom One does that really nicely, and even helps avoid tolls – where is the future of tolls now?
I also took out a new comprehensive insurance policy on our little ride, not because it’s worth a shit load of money, it’s because there are so many idiots in the Sydney area, that don’t believe indicators work for example, that it’d be a very cost effective option to take out such a policy!
I was amazed at the huge expense they wanted to hit me up though, it seems to be based off years driving, and well, with not even 1 year there yet, they want to charge a huge premium for it, simply put, it’d cost $2K a year to insure a car that costs around double that to replace.
If I’m accident free for 2 years, then I’d have been losing out to the tune of $4K. I could have replaced the car in that amount of time, so that doesn’t seem like a viable long term thing, but if they pay the tow truck and repairs and trip for me home if some dick in Sydney got their licence by pure luck, then I can rest easy in the fact that they pay the bills, I pay no excess, the idiot at fault well, pays everything.
I’d only really need it for the trips in Sydney, we don’t do a lot of them, so it’s not worthwhile for a long term thing, and as mentioned above, accident free for 2 years means I’m ahead another car.
Back to the TomTom, a few issues that annoy me: Non-existent roundabouts in the local area, advertised, but unavailable camera alerts, sometimes a little slow at announcing upcoming turns where the route has been travelled off, and other similar data.
We plan to take another trip to Sydney at some point soon, using this device to see if it can hit the markers spot on, and how it responds, and test for anything inaccurate. I hate having to be somewhere at a specific time, and a wrong turn screws that up completely, so knowing timing data in advance is good, and we just have to add time if there is any traffic flow issues.
I do have a good sense of direction, and I hope that in Sydney, this device has a good sense of one way streets!
Enjoy!