Nervous About NAV?

By Maureen McDonald
Senior Editor
Michigan Bureau
The Auto Channel

Nervous about navigation systems?

We pull up to a liquor store in Riviera Beach, just beyond West Palm Beach, and ask directions to Lake Park from a man with a strong stench of liquor and leathery skin. Nothing else was open and we'd driven round and round in circles. He tells us we are just a few blocks away, tells us how to get there, then holds out his hand for money.

Sheesh! Show up in a $65,000 ice blue Volvo S90 sedan and the world thinks you are rich. I pull a $5 bill out of the glove compartment, change from a dozen Floridian toll booths , and hand it to him. Two seconds later a young couple with zombie eyes appear in my radar and demand money.

We jump back in the car, cursing my total lack of technology skills. The drunk guy's directions take us straight to the mural painting party at the Brewhouse Gallery. Young, old, black, white, gay, straight folks chatter in the alley on a warm night while a live band plays inside the bar. I'm back in my element with writers and artisans. Walter Johnson's calligraphy is simply beautiful. The car rides magnificently.

But I'm aware of my limitations. Mortally aware. My friend J.B. Dixson knows Palm Beach and West Palm Beach, but Lake Park is beyond her social radar. Riviera Beach, she tells me, is a rough part of town. A case of acute anxiety travels from my toes to my aching head.

What if my press car was stolen at gunpoint? What if I lost my wallet at the peak of my vacation? What if I got some savvy and learned navigation? It is a weekend. All the media folks with Volvo have gone away from their phones. Dealerships are closed.

I'm a Detroiter. I can manage a little urban color. But I'm aware I've been a Luddite too long.

I've tried to navigate streets with a MapQuest printout in one hand, steering wheel in the other. I spent an extra hour looping around greater Orlando because I couldn't spot the next turn fast enough. I'd tried reading the Volvo manual, more difficult than conquering Latin in high school.

To be sure, I'm not alone. A 2013 survey by Michelin Travel and Lifestyle found 63 percent of U.S. drivers who have used GPS say the technology has led them astray at least once by pointing them in the wrong direction, or creating complex, confusing and incorrect routes. More than 2,200 adults surveyed said the GPS took them off track 4.4 times. People in the plus-55 group were more apt to carry maps.

My friend George Thom in Ponte Verde comes to my rescue. "Maureen, this is the simplest system I've ever seen, you punch the NAV button on the center console. Press the button a second time and you get a menu screen. You have a pull down keyboard, enter your destination. Easy Peasy!"

How did I go this long without a Garmin, Siri, Tom-Tom or something? Even Verizon has VZ Navigator for your phone. The notion of an electronic voice that tells you where to go (not your father) has been around awhile. Back in 1966 General Motors Research tinkered with a non-satellite based system called Driver Aid, Information and Routing. It wasn't practical then, but the system morphed into OnStar.

Navigation systems use a satellite for position data and correlate it with the road.

Toyota, according to Wikipedia, brought out a navigation computer on the Toyota Celica in 1981 and in 1987 introduced a navigation system on a CD-ROM. In 1990 Mazda Eunos Cosmo became the first car with a built-in GPS-navigation system. By 2000 the United States had a more accurate GPS signal available for public use.

The Navigation Data Standard emerged in 2004 and became a registered association in 2009 so that the same navigation maps would be used in navigation systems from 20 manufacturers. This began to make life easier, so people wouldn't need to check a liquor store at night to find a party.

Volvo offers the advanced Sensus Navigation to provide the latest in connected driving features along with free map updates and more. Instead of fiddling with the onboard system in the freezing cold car, you can plot out a route with Sensus, use the "Send to Car" feature and transmit directions from your smartphone, tablet or desktop computer to the automobile.

With some fancy typing and exploring, Sensus Connect Navigation will send you real-time traffic updates, alternate routes and 3D modeling. The high-performance screen offers visibility in the night or day, or as Volvo says, "you'll never be without that guiding light."

I tinkered well enough to program a trip from Jacksonville through the Ocala National Forest instead of a dull highway route. But I couldn't stop the navigation system from sending me to the unmanned gate in Harbor Hills where I was staying. I could get a listing for a pizza place in the Villages but not the Dunkin Donuts. But that's minor.

Triumph! I made it 90 minutes to the airport, through a hundred twist, turns and tollbooths around Orlando with no complaints. Tossed the keys to the gatekeeper at the parking lot and cried my way to the plane. I had to leave the car - and the super navigation system - behind.