.... and for example, take the GPS off the throw it in the trunk or frunk.....
Lots of other good info in there, but this one really astounds me!! :dontknow: I leave my GPS on
ALL the time, &
sometimes I even
look at it!! :sour: They are particularly handy things to have running, especially if you are travelling any further away from home than the local shops! Orright, I might be climbing up onto my soapbox just a little here, but I feel that having one & NOT running it really does warrant some discussion!!
OK, I've got one, I leave it running all the time, altho I don't spend a heap of time watching it. When I do look at it, I can find a vast array of potentially helpful info. It gives me traffic alerts, tells me the time; displays the speed limit for this bit of road & shows my actual speed very accurately; shows me the name of the next street, the next Hwy, or the next road; it can show me how far it is to the next town; it will display eateries or accommodation; it monitors my fuel usage & tells me how far I can go before I need to start looking for fuel next, & then it'll show me all the nearby fuel outlets; it tracks where I've been & maintains a record that I can download later; I can mark any places that I want to come back to & explore more fully later on; and there's a heap more useful things that it can do & info it can provide for you to use & benefit from
IF YOU WANT to make use of it!! It can even tell me exactly where I am at pretty much any given moment so that if I come across an accident or something else requiring the authorities or others to be notified, I can give them precise details, potentially providing life saving info that you may not be able to do in a timely manner if your GPS is in the trunk!! :shocked:
Besides, AFAIK, there's no compulsion circuit built in to
ANY GPS on the market (yet?!) and if I've created & stored a route to follow, I still don't
HAVE to use it; besides, even if I've got a stored route running, there's nothing that forces me to follow it or the directions it provides if I don't feel like it!! I can even Mute the turn directions on the 660 & my latest truck unit even allows me to time-out the display, so it just sits there waiting for a touch before showing me anything! That aside, if I
am running a route, this Garmin 660 GPS thing is smart!! It can tell me how far to the next turn, how far to my destination, what time I expect to arrive at the next waypoint or when I am likely to reach my final destination, & all sorts of other potentially helpful stuff too;
AND yet the moment I turn away from the route I initially programmed it immediately works out an alternative route that'll get me back on track or to each of the places along the way I've set up as 'must see' waypoints -
IF I choose to follow the directions!
All up, these GPS's are really helpful tools to have running on your Spyder (or any vehicle) any or all of the time - they don't use more fuel or force you to do anything; they just sit there holding all this fantastic info & advice, just waiting & hoping for the moment
you decide that you want to take advantage of it; but there's nothing
forcing you to use any or all of it!! The important thing is that if you don't have your GPS turned on, you won't be able to avail yourself of any of that info, advice, or even help without mucking around a bit!! One thing that I find particularly handy when I'm out there just stooging along is that even if I'm taking turns at random I can quickly zoom in or out & see at a glance if this road that looks interesting goes thru to anywhere, if it's a dead end, or if it turns to dirt 200 yards over that first rise....
To me, if you've got a GPS on your Spyder that's running, even if you aren't using it for anything right now, you are
far better off than if it's sitting in the trunk! It's there at a glance & maybe a few button presses
IF you want or need it, & while
Not having it on & running might not be quite the same safety issue, it still strikes me as being very similar to deciding that you don't want to be bothered slowing down any so you might as well cut off the brake pedal & throw it in the trunk!! Do you ryde with your eyes glued to all the other dials & gauges all the time?? Or do you just glance at them every so often & use the info they provide as & when it conveys valuable advice or you want to know what they are telling you?? Just like them, a GPS is a tool that can be very helpful
IF it's turned on & running; & just like them, it can be a significant loss to you (& potentially others as well)
IF you decide to just throw it in the trunk - but I guess it is really your choice, just like it's your choice to cut off your nose to spite your face?!? But given all that, why on earth wouldn't you just leave your GPS on & running all the time, even if you choose not to use the info it conveys all that often?!? :dontknow: Surely all this stuff could be handy to have at a glance/touch of a button, & surely that applies
ESPECIALLY if you are travelling anywhere further than the local shops like the OP is planning?!?
