Garmin Traffic

Is the garmin traffic service worth having? I have a nuvi 500 and I am thinking about getting the plug with the traffic service.

 

I used "live traffic" in rentals and it did me no favors outside of trying to drive in the UK. I don't miss not having it.

 

I had it on my Nuvi and it saved me from some major traffic jams a few times. You will get to know some alternate ways to get home during rush hour if the city you live in has bad traffic. It's also nice to know gas prices for the stations around you. I now have the Infiniti navigation system, and I hate it. The only thing is that I got the service for free because they screwed up my account, so I am a little biased.

 

He lives.....

 

I haven't seen the need for it. I take trips all the time on my Sprint with my Garmin without the traffic service and have never had any issues.

But then again, if you get caught in traffic while in a hurry some place, it might be beneficial.

 

Really depends on how much you drive on major highways where traffic jams/wrecks can last from 30 minutes to 2 hours or more. Here in Atlanta I cant imagine not having it, I depend on it as much as my cell phone.

Not to mention being able to get alternate routes to breaking news locations when the main roads are jammed up..:up:

 

Being in ATL. I have it. It's great.

-steve

 

I have a Navigon and am not that big of a fan of their traffic service. I know that most of them subscribe to generic services.

My problem is that I live in the metro NY area and mine considers EVERYTHING traffic. Or the opposite and it misses major shit.

Personally, I wish I had the XM with the traffic stations.

 

One thing I will say is that the traffic warnings does hang out longer than the event goes on for. I'll be rolling home up 75N from downtown and it'll say that there is traffic warnings up ahead around the 75/285 are or a little bit south at the cumberland exit and I'll just go rolling right through. You do have to somewhat pay attention to what time it is and look ahead to see if the traffic is actually there and adjust accordingly.

Then again this Friday at 7:30 there was all kinds of traffic. Got off at Northside and took backroads that the GPS showed and cut 20 minutes off travel time instead of sitting in traffic.

-steve

 

isn't 1010 still the gold standard on traffic in the city?

 

I had no use for it until a few weeks ago when it tried to route me around a major traffic jam on I75. I ignored it and spent an extra two hours stopped on the interstate (it didn't tell me why it didn't want me to get off the interstate, the route it pulled was just a U.S. highway). Same thing happened to a friend of mine. I'm going to try and figure out if mine'll tell me why it's doing that so I know not to ignore it, so I'll know. If I can do that (so you know to listen to it), I would highly recommend it.