A few weeks ago I went on my first nonworking vacation in living memory and discovered in the process that some things have changed.
Over the years we've used a well-known van service to carry us to and from Sea-Tac. I needn't name the company, though in the past it's given good shuttle and I express appreciation for that.
Our drivers on these latest runs were personable, even chatty. But each also seemed virtually bonded with, and certainly reliant upon, a new gadget on the dashboard of his van: a little GPS screen on which his itinerary was displayed, while a computerized voice-HAL-like, albeit female-sounding-issued instructions at key points in the journey.
To put it bluntly, neither of these fellows seemed entirely to know what he was doing. Or more to the point, where he was going.
The outbound driver didn't do too badly. True, if I'd been driving to Sea-Tac, I wouldn't have elected to go half a mile in the opposite direction to get down to Nickerson, then turn right and head for Westlake in order to gain eventual access to I-5 heading south. And if I had gone that way, I'd have known to wait till Mercer before turning left. Our man, eyeing the GPS screen, was going to turn a block early-which could have had him driving us around the end of Lake Union-till I gently remarked, "You'll want Mercer." He chuckled, "I will indeed," and the rest of the trip went fine.
It was the guy on the return trip who gave us the willies.
There were four parties loaded into our van. Before we'd even left the terminal, it took the driver several minutes each to program the four destinations into his gadget. In our own case, this entailed a couple of wasted minutes while he insisted that our home street did not in fact exist.
At last we're on the way, with the voice telling us how many tenths of a mile were the various legs of getting from Sea-Tac to I-5 heading north. (Me, I'd have taken the back way- 518, etc. -the cab driver route I'd learned in pre-GPS days, but let that go.)
So we get off I-5 at Seneca and Sixth Avenue; the first client is going to the Inn at Sixth Avenue. But the voice lady has our driver heading over to Fourth. However, she does know to get back over onto Sixth somewhere in midtown. Except that now the driver is stymied. He just sits there while the box starts issuing conflicting orders.
By now everyone onboard, except the driver, can see the Inn at Sixth Avenue lit up a couple blocks ahead. We all start speaking, then shouting and pointing, "It's there"-while the driver prepares to believe the boxed voice that maybe if he got back over onto Fourth Avenue...
OK, we get the lucky traveler to the Inn at Sixth Avenue without having to resort to force. Now for the lady from Phoenix who wants to go to the MarQueen Hotel in the heart of Lower Queen Anne.
The voice and the map direct us to Denny Way. Fine. We're headed in the proper direction for eventually making a right up First Avenue North-but the box starts flashing "Second Avenue North," and the voice starts repeating, "Turn right ... turn right ..." And the driver does.
You know Second? It's a virtual cul-de-sac that will run you up against the side gates of Seattle Center. Which aren't open. And which you wouldn't want to drive through even if they were open. The driver stops (fortunately there's no traffic-nobody else wants to travel on Second Avenue). "I don't know where...," he confesses. "Turn right!" the box insists again, because it's worked so well before. No matter that, at this point, there is no right.
"Go left!" we variously call in not-quite-unison, and get the poor guy over to First Avenue where he should have been all along. "Now go right!" Amazingly, he does.
But only so that, when he gets up to Mercer, he can heed the GPS' insistence to "Turn left ... turn left." Which is fine as the crow flies, but no good when you hit Queen Anne Avenue a block later, because Queen Anne is a one-way street going the wrong way to get you to the MarQueen, between Mercer and Roy. Which doesn't stop The Voice from confidently urging, "Turn right!"
About this time the driver admits, "I don't really know this area. I've been to Seattle only a couple of times. I live in Tacoma!" Well, he can't help that.
And so it continued, or would have if the human element in the back seat hadn't firmly taken over and directed each and every turn henceforward. The Phoenix lady got to the MarQueen, and we got home to the street on the north face of the Hill that didn't exist.
I hope the fourth party made it home to Wallingford.
Throughout, the box never stopped issuing orders/suggestions, some of which made partial sense and some of which made none. And the driver had almost physically to tear himself away from following the box's instructions, even as they were contradicted by the evidence of his eyes.
GPS = Gone Past Sanity?
Richard T. Jameson edits the Queen Anne News. He can be reached at rtjameson@nwlink.com.[[In-content Ad]]
