400 views and not one comment? What do people not have GPS? Do people not care about avoiding traffic and accidents in real time? This would be so great. Anybody?

I tried a Lowrance; it never worked. I used DeLorme software on my laptop with a bluetooth GPS receiver for a while; it worked great but asking clients to hold your laptop was not cool. I settled on the Garmin Nuvi 660.

Nuvi 660 comes with an adapter that powers the unit AND has the built in receiver for the FM traffic reports. It works. I can look directly at all the major traffic routes in Atlanta and tell exactly how things are going. The data is supplied by an automated DOT system. With built in bluetooth, the Nuvi easily sychned with my cell phone (the phonebook on my cell phone automatically copied to the Nuvi!). I can place and receive calls directly through the Nuvi. Routing is fast and intelligent. It takes me one way TO the office and another FROM the office back home avoiding left hand turns! Built in FM transmitter so that I can listen to the prompts on my radio (built in MP3 player also). Fast satellite locking.

I'll shut up now. Can you tell I like it? I've just scratched the surfact of it's feature list. I selected based on CNET.com's reviews.

Actually I want MORE information.

I dont care about the other bluetooth features. All I care about is whether it will automatically reroute you based on traffic patterns. Does it just visually show you traffic or does it calculate the difference and send you the fastest way?

Thank you sooooo much!

Frank

Hey Frank

The answer is: I don't know---yet. I just went out to the car to take a look and found out there are currently 2 minor accidents on the freeways around atlanta, 4 sections where there is some minor construction, and 3 others where there is slow traffic. The Nuvi flags these with a yellow icon meaning that the impact is minimal. So I selected a desitination that I new would take me by one of the minor accidents so see if it would detour me around it--it didn't. I suspect the trigger would be an orange or red icon which would be moderate or severe impact. Also, whenever I am driving, I can always hit the "detour" button and it will figure out an alternate route.

As soon as I have a real live experience with really messed up traffic, I will be back to post what I discover.

Also, this feature is free for the first 3 months and then $60 per year thereafter and not all areas are covered. Garmin has info on what areas are covered on their website.

Good morning, Frank!

Quick report: yesterday I was headed to the office and came upon a car that was on fire in the middle of an intersection on a surface street. I hit the "detour" button and zipped right around it. The real time traffic info, however, never picked up that problem. I have a hunch that the real time info is limited to expressways and major arteries.

This morning I had to head out of town to teach a class. The Nuvi immediately told me that there was slow traffic on one of the expressways I was going to take. I decided not to detour. Sure enough there was about a quarter mile of stop and go. The instant I passed that little area, the yellow warning icon went off and it was smooth sailing to my destination.

More reports as I have them...

Hello Everyone!

I bought a Garmin Street Pilot GPS system...a little on the expensive side, but it is portable and you can link it with XM Satelite Radio.  XM has a live traffic & weather update channel on it.  Link this with your GPS system and voila!  

The only bad thing for me is that XM carries most, but not all major Metro areas, except for......You guessed it!  Las Vegas!
Bummer for me for now.
However...I still dig it, because it is portable, it saves me a ton of time.  I have a new form of ADD, Acute Directions Disorder.  This little gadget has saved me a bunch of times from going West when I wanted to go East, etc.  You can punch an unlimited amount of via points within your routes and it calculates within seconds the fastest route.

Unless I talk with a Realtor that has actually used a Traffic system that offers automatic rererouting, I don't believe what it says that it offers.

The challenge continues!!! 

Frank, I use mine every day. And, yes, it routes me around traffic all the time. It is not the end all and be all of traffic avoidance. For one thing, the traffic services do not monitor surface and feeder streets (my unit does have a "reroute" button for that); only the major highways. For another, rush hour is rush hour. My Garmin Nuvi can't do anything about that.

I can't tell you how often I've been routed in ways that I thought were nuts which actually turned out to be much faster. More likely than not: it will route me to a destination one way and back another because of traffic patterns and tie ups. I'm a happy camper who cannot wait to take in on vacation with me next week.

Buddy, you are getting closer to what I want, but I see that as just a tad better than my reroute button on my $200  GPS.

Heck, I can see the jam ahead and hit a button and it will reroute me through the closest exit and take me another route. But the question is if that route is better!!!!

What I need is simple, yet not there yet. It will be one day. 

What I need is to be driving from Point A to Point B and it detect traffic and basically say "turn here and save 15 minutes"

Too many times, I have seen traffic ahead, just to reroute and co through the city, just for it to be LONGER!

If there is traffic, that is fine, but tell me that THIS way is faster than that way. I'll sit 20 minutes in traffic if I know it will beat going through the back way and sit in 30 minutes of traffic.

I don't think I'm asking for too much. I think most traffic websites will tell you how many minutes WITH traffic each path will take you. I just want that built into my GPS. 

I'd pay $2,000 for this product!  

Let me know if I'm missing something. 

I don't think you are missing anything at all. I'm not sure, though, how much closer it will get. One issue is timing. I've driven down an expressway where I could see 3 separate accidents on the GPS (it has little mangled car icons) only to discover that there HAD been an accident there. I could see skid markes; car parts and the like. I just cannot image it getting much better when you have to rely on the DOT for the raw data.

Frank, what we need is a Moller SkyCar. Anything else is a poor substitute. Only they a bit more that $2K.

Nah, Cops, ambulances and fire trucks I'm sure have something

Yep. They got the gizmo that turns the lights green for them.

I have had a Garmin GPS for years and now it is time to upgrade as the other day we were driving down the road and my son looked at the screen and said "hey mommy...we are in water" can you guess that the screen was all blue?  I have enjoyed hearing about the traffic feature although way up here in NH we don't have too much of that...lots of road closures from recent floods though so the detour route would be fabulous!

I have been a huge fan of my Garmin GPS to the point that I don't even carry a map book with me anymore as I am always being brought exactly to where I need to be...never fail!

My father in-law, who by the way is the worst with directions if he got lost always had to retrace his steps back to point A and start over again...LOL, he just ordered a new GPS and although the first time he used it he did get lost...it is him...since then...he has fallen in love with it!  The only bad thing is when we all get together we don't have the funny little "how I got lost" stories anymore.  O'well...at least he loves it too.

I definitely would recommend Garmin to anyone who asks...and thanks for the traffic and detour info! 

I was told that you can get a GPS sytem at Costco on sale for around $ 300 .I think they said a Garmin brand.Does anyone know if it is good, and what model I should be looking for.?

Hey Gita, my experience has been that you get what you pay for. I have had very inexpensive solutions (<$125.00) that worked but were very cumbersome. I have had a $250.00 unit that would rarely lock onto the satellites. I have had the Garmin Nuvi 660 for about 4 months now and I cannot imagine anything working better. One mistake I made was discounting some of the features that some units have that I thought that I would never use. I.E., why would I ever want bluetooth or MP3? Boy was I wrong. You get addicted to a rich feature set very quickly. My wife (who looked at me with total dismay when I told her what I paid) now loves the thing after driving around VT, NH, ME and MA for 2 weeks last month. We rarely were on an expressway and we found some of the coolest places to go. As for real estate use: awesome. It knows when there is heavy traffic along your route and automatically reroutes you to the quickest possible route. I checked Costco and they do have some $300 units but I am not familiar with them even though the features sets look pretty good. The do carry the Nuvi 660 and have the best price I've seen anywhere. Hope this helps.

I LOVE my Tom Tom 1 that I got for $300 on Amazon

And if you want, you can get a refurbed Tom tom 300 that has the same processing power but is a little bigger (3 times the battery life too). They are amazing. I don't think you need more. The only feature I'm waiting for is the damn real time traffic rerouting system.

Does anybody have traffic with their GPS yet? I'm still waiting for it!  

Ok, Im going to buy this now and try it out:

$225 

TomTom ONE 3rd Edition Portable GPS Vehicle Navigator (only the 3rd edition works with the RDS-TMC)

Together with the $125 TomTom / Tom Tom RDS-TMC Traffic Receiver

Let's see if it does what it says it will do. 

I use Google Maps on my Treo 700p.  It's awesome!  Shows where the slowdowns are.   Always great when I am trying to get to my support group on Friday evenings in Beltway rush hour!

Well? How do you like your TT1. Frank?

Every company from Garman to TomTom has this built in now using radio.  

I couldn't get it to work.

As for every company having it "built in", all I need is ONE person to tell me that THEY personally have gotten it to work.

My TomTom One 3rd edition was unable to find the station and I can't figure out how to manually find what the station number is for Washington DC. And for TomTom you have to get an annoying separate device.

Frank 

Frank

 This is the greatest comment section I've ever seen.  All you want is the simple answer....and it doesn't seem that you've found it....  I can't seem to get the info either.....  I feel for you.  I've just spent hours on the internet and cant find out  if what  i want to buy exists.

I bought some device that was supposed to work with the tom tom, but it could never find the radio signal. So it sits gathering dust. Let me know if you find it.

Frank     

I am looking for the same thing.  A unit that based on real time traffic routes me the fastest way.  So far looking at the descriptions of the GPS units I don't see exactly what I want.  I came across the www.dash.net  It sounds closer than anything else so far.  Have you heard of this?  It looks a little big and bulky to me but sounds like it may be worth looking into.  I found them at Amazon.com cheaper than the manufacturers web site.  Let me know if you have found the GPS that gives you best route based in real time traffic (not just alerts).  Thank you,