What do people use for traffic avoidance on the road? Anyone have any recommendations, positive or negative?
We have four radio stations serving our area, all of which broadcast updates every 10 minutes. That is just fast enough to explain why I am stuck in traffic but way too slow to help me avoid he jam. I have a great Garmin Nuvi that exceeds my expectations for navigation. I purchased a model with lifetime maps and lifetime traffic service. I find the traffic service totally worthless. When traffic information is available through the FM receiver, two little cars pop up on the screen; green if traffic is light, but yellow, orange or red if it is moderate, heavy or very heavy. Then, more specific information is available. The first problem is that, even though I travel major roads in a large metropolitan area, the traffic signals almost never come on. When they do, little or no useful information is provided. So, on my son's recommendation, I got a free app for my iPhone called Waze. It is almost, but not quite, as reliable as Garmin for road navigation. It is much better than Garmin, however for traffic, construction and road hazards. It is a community-based system, in which other Waze users provide the information that shows up on the iPhone. with a bluetooth speaker on my visor, I can operate the navigation and traffic functions, as well as my telephone and music, "hands-free" all through the iPhone. There are, of course, disadvantages with Waze. The screen is smaller and harder to read than the Garmin, since anyone with the app can upload reports, some of the alerts are non-existent or over-stated. Plus, Waze was recently bought by Google, so there is no telling what changes are on the way. Currently, I am using the Nuvi for navigation and Waze for traffic. It is a workable system, but a couple of recent monster traffic jams have me wishing for something better. What's better? Dan Matyola http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/danieljmatyola -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
