Auto Distraction
onSeptember 16th, 2023
Ayumi and I made our first road trip in a car yesterday, driving just over 400km from our apartment in Chiba prefecture down to the house in Aichi. This happened to also be the first time that I have driven a car since obtaining a Japanese driver's license. The Daihatsu Copen that I've requested will not be ready until mid-October so, as I have a few appointments that cannot be postponed, we made the trip in a relatively new Toyota Yaris.
All in all, the drive went well. What stands out from the trip isn't the 9-hours of travel that was required, nor the heavy rain that dropped visibility down to 50 meters on a busy highway, nor the hundreds of bends and curves on the narrow mountain roads in Nagano while lightning flashed overhead. Instead the topic that comes to mind is the amount of distractions caused by all the technology in the vehicle, including the frustrating futility of using Google Maps for directions.
As this was to be not only the first long drive with the puppy, but the first drive, a plan was made to make the first half of the trip on the standard roads. This would mean hitting more red lights, navigating narrow roads, dealing with more trains, and watching for more pedestrians. However, this would also be a good way to get acquainted with the car while having the most flexibility to stop in the event that Ayumi or I needed a break. If we could make it from the apartment to Nagano's Lake Suwa in a reasonable amount of time, a decision could be made about whether to stay on the standard roads or switch to the toll highways.
Sadly, we didn't make it to Lake Suwa.
The route that Google Maps provided looked pretty good. It would have us circle the outside of Tokyo, going through Saitama and Gunma prefectures before reaching Nagano. The roads were not particularly busy and we made good time for the first hour and a half. There were a number of very narrow roads that we had to travel down, which was not much of a problem, but every time I crossed the white line at the edge of the road to make space for oncoming traffic the car would first try to nudge me back onto the road and start beeping. At first the reason for the beeps was a mystery, but several kilometres of narrow roads offered plenty of opportunity to trace the nature of the complaint down.
Another complaint that the car made during the trip started to appear after driving for more than two hours; it really wanted me to pull over and take a break. While I can see the benefit of these safety features, I found them to be more of a distraction than a helpful aid. Perhaps I am just not accustomed to cars telling drivers what to do.
Car-nudging aside, the primary issue with the journey was Google Maps on the iDevice. The GPS was not accurate enough, often showing the car as facing the wrong direction or being 50~100 metres behind its actual location. This made it difficult to know which road to turn onto at times and resulted in a few wrong turns. However, the failures that really pushed the app into the trash bin, though, happened while the puppy and I were going through Gunma.
The map and the spoken directions said to "turn left at the next light", which I did only to hear the equivalent of "Turn around, stupid. You turned one intersection too early." The first time this happened, I noticed there was a large park just down the road and followed it anyway so that Ayumi and I could stretch our legs. This turned out to be an excellent accident as Ayumi and I both enjoyed the green grass opportunity to interact with other puppies.
After leaving the park we followed Google Maps again to turn down the correct road and continue towards Lake Suwa. It was at this point the map stopped updating altogether. When it came back to life two kilometres later, I was told to turn around. Given that we were not yet in the deep mountains where one might offer a lack of sky as a reason for the failure, I pulled over and exited the application. The car does have a navigation system, but I was hoping to not use it as car manufacturers make some bizarre UI decisions. However, being in the middle of uncharted territory without a map, there was no other option. Ayumi was sleeping and the sun had almost completely set, making a trip to the park surrounding Lake Suwa illogical. Also, as we had just enjoyed a little walk a little earlier, there didn't seem to be any reason to travel to that place anymore. So I punched in the name of the neighbourhood where my house sits and hoped that Toyota's map would not fail me.
It didn't.
The navigation system offered a route that would get us to the house within four-and-a-half hours with the help of two toll highways. Again, as Ayumi was asleep next to me, I simply followed the directions for a non-stop drive from Gunma into Aichi. Along the way we encountered some incredible lightning storms, heavy rain that dropped visibility to 50 metres on a crowded toll highway, sleepy truck drivers, crazy-long tunnels through mountains, and sleepy villages. All in all, it was a pleasant drive; one that I look forward to making again in my own car a little later this year.
We arrived at our destination a little over 10:30pm, almost exactly nine hours after we left the apartment. The puppy was happy to get out of the car and have another walk in a nearby park. I was happy to get out and stretch my legs, too.
My car does not have a navigation system installed, nor does it even have a place for one1 so, if the phone's GPS is going to be consistently this inaccurate, I'll need to invest in some paper map books2.
All in all there were far more positives than negatives with this trip. The puppy was incredibly good in the car and she clearly prefers this mode of transportation over the busses and trains that we used to take. This was my biggest concern given the amount of work – and money – that went into earning a Japanese driver's license and buying a car. I did bring the camera mounting kits that I plan on using for the upcoming YouTube channel, but these won't be used until the personal car arrives. While I could certainly record in the rental, it's probably best not to do too much at once when getting back behind the wheel for the first time in 20+ years. It doesn't make sense to complain about the car itself being distracting when having camera equipment set up would be no different.
Onwards and upwards.
I would need to order the special mounting kit that includes a replacement dashboard insert ... which I am not interested in doing.
Online support resources tend to suggest resetting the phone to factory in order to resolve this issue, but I'll be darned if I do this while driving. It's not a 5-second process to restore a phone, nor should it be a viable solution given the sophistication of modern software.