Who’s Better: GPS or DeBonis?
Friday night I drove to Chincoteague, Va. It was an opportunity not just to try out the GPS unit my wife just bought but also to try Mike DeBonis’ Best Crosstown Shortcut. These opportunities were soon at war.
“Recalculating…recalculating” said the GPS’ voice over and over as we brazenly ignored its attempts to get us to New York Avenue NE. After about 10 minutes, my oldest son was holding his ears and asking us to turn down the “robot lady,” who finally succumbed to DeBonis’ shortcut four blocks before South Dakota Avenue NE. Too bad for it, because the route was AMAZING. I couldn’t have crossed the District more quickly if I was a freaked-out Spotsylvania dentist hauling ass from the convention center.
Is there any way to program shortcuts into these units? Or are you stuck with the bog-standard routes, all of which seem to favor staying in traffic for a long, long time? I liked having the GPS when I was traveling, but I ended up muting it on the way home.
5 Responses to “Who’s Better: GPS or DeBonis?”
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May 27th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
GPS of course. Mike is never sober enough to get behind the wheel.
May 27th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Rees? Prepare to be banned again.
May 27th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
I’m really surprised no one’s taken issue with my botched Photoshop job. THAT’S where criticism should center.
May 27th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Andrew, don’t you have a designer who can do that type of work for you? OOPS… sorry about that! If you want some preliminary photoshop training, let me know (I’ll give you the ex-city paper rate, which is double the going rate).
BTW, DeBonis, that is an AWESOME shortcut (I use it as well), but did you guys really have to publish it? Aren’t you supposed to be helping readers be “Urban Explorers?” Where does the “exploring” part of the short cut come in?
May 29th, 2008 at 10:03 am
I’ve found that you can use GPS when you’re stuck in traffic to find little-known shortcuts. Last year on the way back from Chincoteague we found ourselves stuck in traffic on a main road. But we noticed a small road off the beaten path, and a quick overhead zoom view of the area gave us the confidence to exit the traffic. When the “computer lady” recalculated we found ourselves a great little (traffic-free) shortcut that shaved off about 15 minutes of waiting in the gridlock before the Bay Bridge.
Many of the newer/high-end GPS units now have real-time traffic information as well, allowing the computer to factor this into the route. Acura comes to mined, but also some of the newer TomTom and Garmin units include traffic as well (though this typically requires a monthly service fee).