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TRAFFIC ALERT - I love my new in-dash GPS unit

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DaTT

DaTT

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So there I was, driving along a highway yesterday listening to Backspin on SiriusXM when my speakers cut out and a nice ladies voice interrupts the song with "TRAFFIC ALERT". Not 15 seconds later....stopped dead. I wasn't even using my GPS at the time. I knew it had traffic avoidance, but I thought it was only active if you were using it. Awesome.

Kenwood DNX9990HD
 
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I check my navigation before leaving home and work every day, just to see the slow downs on the freeway so I can avoid them.
 
LTC8K6 said:
I'm not sure a 15 second warning is useful...
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Heh I was thinking the same thing. My wife's TomTom has done some re-routing well in advance for traffic conditions but my new car hasn't been in traffic yet to see if traffic avoidance works.
 
Most GPSes won't scream traffic if you aren't using the navigation function. It doesn't know your next move so it won't alert you until it thinks that you are definitely going to be hitting it. If it were in navigation mode it would probably have re-routed immediately.
 
iamwiz82 said:
Most GPSes won't scream traffic if you aren't using the navigation function. It doesn't know your next move so it won't alert you until it thinks that you are definitely going to be hitting it. If it were in navigation mode it would probably have re-routed immediately.
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This is true. I just thought it was neat that even though I wasn't in GPS mode, it still runs in the background.
 
This is why I press "Home" every day on my 2013 Dart's GPS, even though I already know where I'm going. Makes it much easier to avoid the slowdowns. There are mobile crews doing interstate work, so everyday it seems to move where the issue is. I find using it to jump off one exit, and drive up the city roads 2-3 miles to the next exit to get back on, actually saves *alot* of time.
 
My hundred dollar garmin has traffic alerts and it is surely the most useless feature. It rarely notifies and in the rare occasion it does it isn't accurate anyway.
 
My favorite was when I was driving home and I got a "Road Closure Ahead". No possible detour. Stuck for 2 hours while an overturned 18 wheeler was being removed from the interstate.

At least I knew about it before everyone else?
 
iamwiz82 said:
Cars get it from FM - for a few weeks in the recent past it wasn't working very well in Michigan (or anywhere, when I researched) but it's come back now. Neither of my cars were getting properly traffic info consistently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_Message_Channel
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It can also come over satellite. If your car has an in-dash nav system with a current satellite radio subscription, you're probably getting traffic data to the GPS from it.
 
my pioneer nav has this too, I odn't find it terribly useful.

its better when I am listening to my iphone via the headunit and have waze running in the background. traffic + accident + police sightings. they have enough people using it in my area to actually get real time data
 
I hope the Kenwood models have gotten better, the 2010 version of that unit I have is a piece of garbage half the time. The navigation will on occasion freeze up or just stop reporting traffic.
 
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