Last week my friend Chris and I decided to check out a Chinese restaurant located on Beacon Street in Brookline, Mass. Anyone living in the Boston area knows that Beacon Street is pretty long and making turns is difficult because of the long median strip that separates the lanes of inbound and outbound traffic. So if you miss a turn you may have to drive a while before you can find a place to make a U-turn and try again.

Because of that fact, we were worried that we would get lost fairly easily and we weren’t about to take any chances. Chris brought his TomTom GPS receiver along with him as we left his house in Waltham before we climbed into his pickup truck.

I’ve always been skeptical about the reliability of GPS receivers as I’ve heard rumors before that they are not very accurate. Plus I never thought that I could trust a machine telling me where to turn and how long I have before I get to my destination. But the TomTom receiver proved me wrong.

Chris’s TomTom GPS receiver is powered by the 12v socket that is ordinarily used for the car cigarette lighter. Once the device was turned on he typed the address of the restaurant on the touch screen. Then he affixed the device to the windshield with something similar to a suction cup called an EasyPort mount that comes with it. Actually, he asked me to do it first but I somehow managed to place the thing upside-down.

The TomTom receiver already knew where we were, conveniently enough. As soon as we backed out of the driveway and he put the car into gear, a sexy-sounding woman with a British accent started telling him where to go. Later he told me that there are other voices to choose from, but he preferred hers and I immediately understood why.

On screen was an easy-to-follow map to guide us along. It indicated how long we had to drive in distance and time. I wasn’t very familiar with GPS at the time so I started to make fun of the woman who I suspected may have been misleading us with her nonchalant way of telling us how to drive. But the closer we got to our destination, the more confident I became, until she told us to take a right turn that seemed to have been way off track. Both of us became very suspicious of her intentions.

Then we realized what she had in mind when we suddenly hit Beacon Street at an intersection that wasn’t close to the restaurant at all, at least a half-mile away. She had taken into consideration the pesky median strip that I mentioned before. Turns out her route was by far the most logical way to get there. On top of that, we found a curbside parking space not even 20 feet away from the entrance to the restaurant. We were simply stupefied. And I’ll admit, I was embarrassed for questioning the integrity of the TomTom.

GPS, which stands for global positioning system and works with satellite transmissions, is really an amazing tool to take advantage of. With the TomTom GPS receiver installed in your vehicle getting lost is practically impossible. You’ll never have to fiddle with road maps or cope with wrong directions given to you by a clueless gas station attendant again.

No related posts.

Tags: navigation systems, TomTom GPS receiver