I tried out a TomTom for the first time at the weekend. I realise I’m a bit behind the curve on this one, but like many Londoners I don’t own a car (that’s my girlfriend’s Clio in the picture), and there doesn’t yet seem to be a bike-friendly GPS system that has all the bells and whistles I’d want.
The device actually did a lot more than I’d expected. Naturally, it directed me to my destination, but it also provided a handy reminder of local speed limits, and beeped alarmingly whenever I approached a speed camera. It also unnerved me a few times by mistaking bends in the road for turnings, but mostly it was a very positive experience.
But there was one feature that really freaked me out: the ETA display.
Now don’t get me wrong: I’m quite used to ETAs. I come across them all the time, on the web and in real life.
And so I’ve learnt that ETA effectively stands for “Enny Time After.” No matter how rigorously scheduled your mode of transport may be – be it a train, a bus, or a plane (where they make you show up two hours early ostensibly to avoid delays) – the advertised arrival time is merely a ballpark aspiration. Even when the service is, quite literally, on rails, woe betide you if you rely on the official ETA for actual planning purposes.
Wishful thinking?
So I thought it was sweetly naïve when, less than a minute into a seventy-mile car journey, the TomTom popped up a little display saying that we’d arrive at 7.16pm.
It was the precision that made it seem so absurd: just driving five miles across London can take anywhere between twenty minutes and two hours, depending on a whole slew of variables. So it was laughable to see this device projecting our arrival time in Buckinghamshire down to the minute.
But, of course, you can guess how the story ends. We made our way across London, and through various neighbouring towns, our progress dictated as much by the slings and arrows of outrageous traffic as by speed limits and distances.
And, come ten past seven, we were drawing near to our destination. By the time we’d navigated the residential streets and parked, we were within two minutes of the TomTom’s original estimated arrival time. Incredible. Colour me very impressed.
The dark side of GPS
Yet there’s a sinister aspect to this remarkable feature. Because when the time came to turn around and drive home, I knew the TomTom’s ETA would be uncannily accurate – and this immediately suggested the challenge of trying to beat it by driving faster than it expected. (Yes, I’m competitive like that.)
And then I discovered that, by flooring the accelerator at every opportunity, I could actually make the ETA tick backwards. Instantly I became the world’s most aggressive driver, single-mindedly focused on shearing as many minutes as possible from my journey time, and to hell with other road users.
Now, I’m not one of those luddites who thinks mankind needs to be shielded from the disruptive potential of technology. I honestly believe that more information, and better communications, can only be good for society in the long run.
But I have to admit that new technologies can also enable new sorts of antisocial behaviour. The classic example is mobile phones – a godsend if you’re lost, or late, or simply lonely, but, in inconsiderate hands, a source of incalculable irritation for commuters and cinemagoers the world over.
And I guess GPS devices have a similar capacity for evil. We’ve already heard of peaceful villages turned into snarling thoroughfares as GPS devices guide lorries down narrow country roads. And who knows how many accidents have been caused by drivers blindly obeying that dispassionate female voice rather than watching the road and making their own judgments?
But the danger I hadn’t previously recognised – and one to which I admit I see no solution – is the fact that GPS is a fantastic encouragement to drive like an ass. Because you now know exactly how much time you need to make up in order to get home in time for Doctor Who.
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July 1st, 2008 at 12:16 pm
A friend of mine has been using Garmin GPS devices on his bkies for over a decade. They are pretty good and robust.
Me? When I rode from Southampton to Bavaria, I just used Post-It notes with the names of the large cities and the major roads I had to follow. I could cram enough names onto 1 note for a tank-full of petrol and could read it through the plastic window in my tank bag.
July 1st, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Fair point - yes, of course you can get bike-mounted GPS devices. But I’m no offroader - what I’d want is basically a handlebar version of the TomTom One, just to help me navigate around unfamiliar streets. I’ve updated the first paragraph to make that clearer!
July 1st, 2008 at 6:39 pm
He also isn’t an off-roader. He used it with a 1938 BMW when he did the Iron Butt a couple of years ago and normally he rides a Pan European or an FZR1000; hardly off-road bikes. It just attaches to the bar AFAIK.
I’ve never used a Tom Tom, it always looked like a cheap-and-tacky alternative to the Garmins, when they first came out.
My Ford Mondeo has a touch-screen nav system built into the radio/air con unit. It was with the car when I bought it, but I must say, I don’t tend to use it very often. I think I’ve probably used it 3 times this year.
July 1st, 2008 at 7:01 pm
I think the ETA also helps in another way as you soon realise that going like a bat out of hell doesn’t really make a huge difference on most journeys as at best it’s only minutes. The ETA also adjusts so no matter how late or early you arrive and how wrong TomTom got it at the start of the journey, it will have adjusted the ETA to match precisely the time you do arrive!
As for speeding up to get home in time for Doctor Who, you simply use another piece of technology, the PVR with series link, set it and forget it, it will always record your fav program even if the schedule changes.
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:43 am
The ETA shown on my Garmin at the beginning of the journey has no exactitude as it keeps updating itself depending on circumstances. What I would like to know is what speeds are programmed in for the different road classifications. Driving along the A701 between Edinburgh and Moffat I can easily reduce the initial ETA, by as much as two whole minutes. Gosh! I have learned that fast driving only saves minutes in a journey of,say,100 miles. At today’s prices speed is a stupidity.
July 3rd, 2008 at 9:04 am
Of course the ETA will always be correct, no matter how fast or slow you drive.
Since the ETA is calculated not from when you start your journey, but from your current position, based on your current speed and distance from your destination. Ergo, no point in trying to beat the ETA
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:33 am
@Phil it makes a big difference, it is possible to knock off anything between 10-15 minutes per hour on the motorway.l
It means for my regular commute from Wales to Birmingham (M4/M5) I’m prone to trying to knock off 20 minutes off a 100 minute journey from the initial ETA as stated by my Tom Tom Sat Nav.
Having said that, I’ve just come back from Glasgow and didn’t have the Sat Nav: Google maps suggested a time of 5 hours and was accurate to the minute. It also helped that I drove that bit slower…
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:54 am
I find by ignoring my GPS system and taking the best route instead, I can usually cut a couple of hours off of my journey when travelling from Munich to Osnabrück… :-S
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:18 pm
I was in Louis’ this evening with a friend, he had to get his helmet repaired - a screw fell out… (oh, the double entendre possibilities!
Anyway, on the technical counter was a demonstration unit of the Tom-Tom Ride 07/08, a Tom Tom that fits on the handle bar of the motorbike…
July 7th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
David Wright is spot on; I look up the range of routes before I set off (in Google maps when web-enabled or MapInfo when disconnected) and then pick towns along the way to feed the GPS and keep it under control. You can do the “list of cities” bit of paper, but that falls down when you want to use some smaller cities as waypoints (kaiserslautern is my favourite example) or you end up disagreeing with how the signpost makers label the road you are about to turn onto.
The nav logic about roads is busted too. I came back from Karlsruhe a few weeks back and it sent me all the way up to Brussels before turning for the coast - mainly I suspect because the Belgian motorways are 3-lane and the alternatives are 2 lane.
As for the ETA’s, the desire to DLAC should be balanced by watching the average speed display, and finding out how hard it is to get it above 50mph, even with occasional bursts up to 155…
September 27th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
bruce flooring…
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