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Indeed. Elsewhere in the world taxi drivers just follow the GPS.
by artisinal 2mo ago
Indeed. Elsewhere in the world taxi drivers just follow the GPS.
- SoftTalker 2mo agoWe had taxis long before GPS. When I was in my early 20s I had a job delivering pizza. I very quickly learned the delivery area, I knew pretty much every street and alleyway and shortcut to get from one place to another. Much smaller than London but I think the human brain is very good at remembering routes and where things are in an area, as this would have been an evolutionary advantage (go out hunting and be able to find your way back). No GPS, didn't even carry a map with me. We had a large map on the wall at the store, and if I had to deliver to a street I didn't recognize I'd find it on the map, see where it was relative to the streets I did know, and then I never had any problem finding places.
- pryelluw 2mo agoSame. First thing they had me buy was a map book with all the local neighborhoods. The map on the wall helped get shortcuts from others. This is where I learned the difference between the different kinds of shortcuts. Some saved time, others distance, and some even potholes. It was a fun time.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- OptionOfT 2mo agoMy 2019 car had the cardinal directions in the mirror (N, NE, E, ES, S etc). My 2025 does not anymore. I hate it. I think it helps to get that baseline of orientation, and then you look at the street numbers, and it all starts to come together.
- clickety_clack 2mo agoPretty much my only issue with CarPlay is that I can’t seem to set the map so that north is up. It turns everything into “third right ahead” instead of “this is just 2 blocks east of that coffee shop I was at last week”.
- kccqzy 2mo agoCarPlay is merely the technology of having your phone take over a screen in the vehicle. It’s not a mapping map. Plenty of mapping apps support north up. But in any case, I found that if you want to remember routes, it is far better to study the route before you begin driving, and then not rely on CarPlay altogether. This gives you much higher awareness of street names and directions.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- toast0 2mo agoSuction cup compasses are ~ $10 on amazon if it bothers you. Won't be in the mirror though.
- OptionOfT 2mo agoI think I should be able to add it to the iDrive. How much did BMW save by removing it from the mirror? $0.05 / mirror?
- cenamus 2mo agoYou'd also need to mount them facing up, pretty inconvenient when driving
- toast0 2mo agoHave you not seen these things? It's a weighted magnetic sphere floating inside a clear plastic outer sphere. Anywhere you can stick the suction cup to, the compass reading will be roughly horizontal. Here's an example https://www.amazon.com/example/dp/B0FZSFWJQR https://www.amazon.com/example/dp/B0FZSFWJQR that I'm not endorsing.
- bluGill 2mo agoThey have been reality for many years. A compass built into the car didn't exist in the 1990s (it probably did in luxury cars - I never drove them), then moved into mainstream cars, and now the fad is dieing.
- toast0 2mo agoThey definitely were in (some) cars in the 90s. Probably in the late 80s too. I did IT work for my school district in the 90s and I remember our vans had them. Realtime (digital) MPG displays were showing up around the same time. My parents had the same model van, but an earlier year; we didn't have the fancy digital compass mirror, just a suction cup compass ball.
- jambalaya8 2mo ago
- Marsymars 2mo agoMy 2011 car had an auto-dimming mirror that my 2025 car didn't, so I ordered a replacement auto-dimming mirror off ebay which includes the cardinal direction LED. (And garage-door-controlling buttons.) As a bonus you can even set your general location on the mirror for extra accuracy, since the earth's magnetic line directions differ a bit based on location.
- al_borland 2mo agoI suspect GPS has made this much worse. I shining example was an Uber I got in Chicago, where GPS doesn't work well due to all the buildings. The guy drove around the same block 3 times, blindly following the GPS. It was infuriating.
- SoftTalker 2mo agoAnd Chicago is one of the easier cities to navigate, as it's almost entirely a grid.
- walthamstow 2mo agoYeah I don't think grids are comparable to old world cities like London
- jerlam 2mo agoThere weren't a lot of taxis outside of major cities. I think widespread GPS allows ridesharing apps like Uber and Lyft to exist in suburbs and other places where taxis weren't a thing before, because it dramatically lowers the bar.
- stymaar 2mo ago> There weren't a lot of taxis outside of major cities What? In my country at least (France), taxis have been a thing even in the countryside for as long as cars existed (or rather, as long as the telephone has). And I'd be very surprised if that wasn't also the case in most of Western Europe. In fact it's a much easier job when it comes to routing and knowing your passengers' destinations than doing it in a metropolis.
- keiferski 2mo agoIn America, ordering a taxi before rideshare apps was unreliable at best, if you were outside of central parts of major cities. More than one time I got stuck somewhere and had to walk 4 hours home.
- disgruntledphd2 2mo ago> In America, ordering a taxi before rideshare apps was unreliable at best, if you were outside of central parts of major cities. This was not the case everywhere. For instance, Ireland deregulated taxis in 2002, and service improved massively after that. It's funny how many amazing tech developments are really just a reaction to the peculiar pathologies of American/SF culture.
- orcasushi 2mo agoI guess countryside France is still only 2 hours from Paris or Marseille, while countryside USA is maybe 8 hours or more from a metropolitan area. Not to mention that the population in this usa countryside is already way lower then any population density in the whole of France. Operating a taxi corp there would simply be not viable on a financial term.
- nottorp 2mo agoMaybe when they're new. In time they tend to learn the shortcuts that the apps don't show and ignore navigation here and there.