Yesterday morning, I was driving along to Philadelphia, minding my own business, when my GPS device (with a built-in traffic receiver) alerted me to a significant delay on I-676 — greater than 30 mins, and suggested rerouting me to Route 1 instead of the major highway. I did it, and 90 mins later of driving through local traffic, I arrived at the office.
This morning, the same alert came up. Remembering how slow it was to drive through all the traffic lights and other cars on the local roads were Wednesday morning, I decided to chance it on I-676 with the traffic. I kept the traffic screen up, and watched my car enter the highlighted trouble spot with all the accumulating / slow traffic. Cars were still doing 70-80 MPH. As I drove, the count of how long the delay of 26 mins decreased to 24 mins, 20 mins, 18 mins, etc. Meanwhile, we’re all cruising along like it’s nobody’s business.
By the time I took my exit, I’d experience no delays, and the GPS was reporting only a single minute of delay, which disappeared as well. What gives, people? I’m at the end of my complimentary 3 months of free traffic service. I’ve already experienced lack of accurate traffic updates driving to NYC, and less-coverage-than-I-thought on the NJ Turnpike near me. Do I want to pay the annual $60 service going forward? Anyone else find traffic service questionable?
Congratulations to Matt and Tabitha on the birth of their first child. Tabitha gave birth a to a beautiful daughter on June 20th, and named her Marisah. Welcome to the “OMG, why won’t this child sleep?” club. Suckers.