Google Maps has a "feature" where it will suggest an alternate route if it finds one it thinks will save time. I've found the alternate routes don't usually save much, if any time, but they also tend to be more work driving - more turns, off the interstate, whatever.
The absolutely blood boiling part about it is that Google will tell me that it's going to take me on an alternate route, unless I press "No" or "Cancel" or something on the phone within a few minutes. How am I supposed to get my phone and press cancel while driving? I realize some people may have their phone / Google Maps integrated with the car, or may use their phone while driving, but I don't. For me the phone is basically announcing "Hey, I'm gonna annoy you in a few minutes, okay?"
As someone who primarily rides a motorcycle for transportation, and literally has no way to interact with my phone while riding, I agree with the sentiment that this is absolutely blood boiling.
I use Google Maps by listening to the directions through a bluetooth speaker in my helmet so I rarely am ever actually looking at the screen. I absolutely hate how many times it will interrupt/announce absolutely useless information, or at times suddenly announce a route change for a 30 second faster route and it'll just sit there waiting for my input which I cannot provide in order to cancel.
Tank bag, my friend. I'd tried using voice directions, and honestly felt like throwing either my Shoei or phone off of a cliff. Granted, I mostly use navigation for longer trips, but my preferred solution is paper maps in the map compartment for highway driving. For in-town driving, I just keep a notepad in the tank bag and write down the directions. That few minutes also helps me to remember the route enough that I don't need to rely on it as much. I also find it makes riding more enjoyable, since I have one less distraction to worry about.
Plus, for longer trips paper maps are way better on a bike, since Google is really aggressive about what roads they hide. I've found way more fun roads to travel on after using this method. Plus, with a tank bag you always have your rain gear and other necessities with you. Only downside is they look ugly.
> The absolutely blood boiling part about it is that Google will tell me that it's going to take me on an alternate route, unless I press "No" or "Cancel" or something on the phone within a few minutes. How am I supposed to get my phone and press cancel while driving?
Last summer this had my blood boiling. I was part of some backed up traffic but I could already see my destination on the other side of a river, Google Maps saying ~25 minutes away. Suddenly it asks if I want to take an alternate to save 2 minutes. I look at the map and it looks like a pretty wild path to try to save 2 minutes over so I say no. About a minute later it asks again. I say no. This keeps repeating, with a different estimate between 1-4 minutes. I keep saying no. Finally I don't manage to hit the no button quick enough and it assumes I want to save the 2 minutes... so now every exit it starts saying "take the exit...". It was at about this point I thought to just turn the car volume off until I got over the bridge and turn it back on for the rest of the directions.
There was just something about how annoying it managed to be that set me off about it, it couldn't have been less helpful and more of a pain if it tried. Now whenever I hear that prompt that memory comes up. That and like you say the damn "you're on the fastest route". No shit, you'd go off your rocker if I wasn't why bother telling me.
Recently I was going through Chicago and a similar thing started happening during a heavy traffic period but this time rather than "there is a faster route" it was "stay on blah blah for the next <x> miles". Again constantly repeating. I got to thinking about it and I came to the conclusion Google Maps must have an issue where if you stay relatively still and there is any location drift when it snaps you back onto the road it considers it the same as if you had just went through an intersection and it should update you on what's next or going on. In the case of going over the bridge in Cincinnati that meant telling me about the ever so slightly shorter path I could use. In the case of going through Chicago that meant don't take any of the coming splits. Or at least that's the best logical reasoning I could come up with, either way I just muted my car again.
Had this happen on a recent trip, and the worst part is that it changed it's mind and updated the route seconds before an exit - which we were already taking. Instead of reverting to the old route, it comes up with a 20km detour to get back to the (new) route. The best action is to simply stop navigation, and start a completely new route. Incredibly stressful.
It's just so shocking and so baffling to me that Google could actually release this feature without considering that maybe people won't be able to interact with their phone while you know they are driving. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt - but this design seems absolutely braindead to me.
It's TERRIBLE on motorcycle and honestly has probably killed some people. For context, on motorcycle I'll plan out a route beforehand, then I would have Google Maps play through earpiece in helmet, phone remains in pocket.
For some years I was using pebble smartwatch which would vibrate with the turn notification (and I could glance it quickly to verify if I wasn't wearing earpiece or couldn't hear it). In all of those described cases I can't interact with the phone. At some point Apple or Google decided to block the turn notifications from pinging over to my watch, so I had to exclusively wear earpiece to hear directions.
To tie in with the rest of the thread, Google Maps will automatically suggest whatever route it wants and since I cannot interact with the phone on this setup, it will just go with whatever it wants to do, which often leads me onto roads under construction and other potentially dangerous routes. No way to turn off this 'feature'.
Imagine how baffled and shocked you'll be when you realize they did in fact think about this and it's a feature. Every one of these stories of someone failing to prevent this rerouting is a nice little green bar on the PM's adoption chart.
This is an intended behavior to increase uptake of whatever project introduced alternate routes, and will be presented in the team's performance reviews as evidence of their success.
Not that it excuses the feature, but do you have a reason not to get a phone mount? There's nothing wrong with interacting with a navigation app on your dashboard. Your phrasing of "use their phone while driving" makes me wonder...
I think there is something wrong with using your phone while your vehicle is moving. Taking your attention away from driving to mess with your phone is bad. I don't have a dashboard mount because I don't want my phone distracting me while I drive.
It's no different than adjusting the radio or climate controls. If you want to be stubborn and suffer, that's your choice, but don't pretend hitting "ok" on your phone mounted on the dash is some crazy dangerous thing.
Interacting with a touch screen that may try to distract you is pretty obviously different from touching the physical controls of the car. Plus, the phone is telling you "Interact with me now!" With the radio and climate controls you are free to change them at your convenience.
Finally, I didn't say it was "some crazy dangerous thing". You should mentally flag times when you are writing a reply and have to invent new, extreme, and non-representative language to characterize the position you are replying to. Likely, those will be times when, instead of actually replying, you are just babbling to no purpose. That said - taking your attention off of driving to interact with your phone is certainly sub-optimal from a safety point of view.
Steering wheel buttons should be to go for all of these though not every car lets you use them with a paired phones map app unfortunately. You shouldn't have to look at anything or take your hand off the wheel to e.g. lower the temperature the same way as you don't have to in order to activate your wipers. 1 second of distraction on the highway is 100 feet less reaction time not just an example of someone being stubborn.
Checking blind spots isn't a distraction from safe driving it is part of safe driving, the same can't be said for these other things. If I want to appreciate scenery I just pull over and enjoy it. Particularly worthwhile places tend to have designated spots for this. As for billboards I can't really see why I'd want to be looking at advertisements in the first place, let alone looking at advertisements over looking where I'm driving.
Apple Maps has the same feature, but it's an opt-in change so I just ignore the announcement and it'll keep me on the previous route. Plus it's one of the things Siri works well for, just saying No will cancel it.
This feature is necessary when you're taking a long trip like SF-LA - it calculates the whole route because that's what the user expects, but of course there's no way the LA route made hours ahead of time is going to be the best one, since it doesn't know what traffic is going to be where.
It does this with tolls too. I don't want to pay $8 to save 1 minute. I will maybe pay it to save 20 minutes. I've had it where I selected a non-toll route, something changed, then it threw me back onto the tolls.
The only workaround I’ve found for this annoyance is to put my phone into airplane mode after selecting my navigation route. GPS and navigation still works after doing this.
This way it doesn’t update the route with a ‘timesaving’ route or to an expensive toll route. It’s crazy I have to do this and far from ideal as I would like it to update if there really is a major timesaving route, eg if an accident occurs, but I don’t trust Google Maps now to not update now with a screen only navigation alert.
What it should do is alert me to this change with an audible alert and wait for me to actively approve this route change.
The absolutely blood boiling part about it is that Google will tell me that it's going to take me on an alternate route, unless I press "No" or "Cancel" or something on the phone within a few minutes. How am I supposed to get my phone and press cancel while driving? I realize some people may have their phone / Google Maps integrated with the car, or may use their phone while driving, but I don't. For me the phone is basically announcing "Hey, I'm gonna annoy you in a few minutes, okay?"