Necessary Roughness

Sometimes when I rent vehicles, they come with interesting surprises such as satellite radio. My current vehicle has the Hertz NeverLost system. NeverLost combines GPS data with maps to give you real-time directions in getting to a desired place.

My first attempt to use the system failed because my hotel wasn’t listed in the device’s Yellow Pages. My hotel isn’t that new, so that was strange.

Once I punched in the address, though, the system worked well until I ran into some construction in Corpus Christi. Even though I followed a parallel course to what was suggested, the system still suggested I follow its route.

The system got confused when I went through a large highway cloverleaf, the system telling me to “stay left” when I should have followed the ramp to the right. When I exited the cloverleaf in the wrong direction, it recalculated the proper route automatically and got it right. I still had to make a U-turn.

Maps were accurate except for some recently finished construction west of Corpus Christi. The generated maps are pretty sparse. Sometimes the driver sees just a triangle icon on a single white line. Automatically zooming out until the next major road could be a cool feature. When a turn is made, the system tries to represent the intersection, and it does this pretty well. Corpus Christi is not very grid friendly.

The map screen is very bright and readable, in day or night. Addresses can be punched in using the 8-direction arrow pad, using an efficient keyboard that eliminates letters that don’t result in proper spellings. After picking C-O-R-P, the unit figured out I was looking for Corpus Christi.

The unit also gives audio directions. The female voice was clean of regional accents. “Slight” sounded a little too close to “right”, so “slight right” sounded funny. The system informs the driver of the next turn within 2 miles and 0.4 miles, and a chime rings when it thinks one has made or should make a turn. Whenever a button is hit, the voice responds with the option the driver has selected, so someone familiar with the console could use it with their eyes on the road.

NeverLost remembers at least six previous destinations, a pretty cool feature. I never had it show me wrong information on an address, something MapQuest will do if the information is new enough.

In my car the console is mounted low and to the right of the radio console, which means the driver has to look away from the road during its use. The buttons are nice and large, and if the system gets annoying in its advise, one can hit the Cancel button. The “Are you sure?” message that comes afterwards made me use the arrow keys to hit “Yes” and verify the screen.

GPS in the car is interesting and may be useful if one has a lot of different places to go to. One can also use it to just choose a restaurant and go. The additional information can cause the driver to trust the device too much, like what happened in the cloverleaf. It’s definitely better than printing out a MapQuest map and trying to quickly look between paper and road. If I were to buy a unit, I would definitely get one with some raised buttons like the NeverLost, and not a unit with just a touch screen.