Do you enable Traffic avoidence?

I disable my Traffic in avoidances for the same reasons. If it does show me traffic then I’d like to be the one making the decision of using local streets.

I don't live in a big town but have found at least the avoid dirt roads to be just about useless to me. There is a single lane dirt farm road just outside my driveway that my Garmin insist I take into and out of my home. Yet I leave it, U-turns and Toll roads checked, just in case. Not sure if it actually does anything for me or not.

It is turned on. Living in Chicago left me with no choice. In many cases, one could avoid highway traffic, especially in construction areas where traffic is dense. Useful, almost always. In places where there is little traffic, it may be of no use but I do not think that feature was designed for places with no traffic.

My husband went into meltdown during our drive to Shelburne VT a few weeks back. "Jack" told me to turn down this gravelly road, and it was out in the middle of nowhere. Hubby said it led to ski cabins and deadended. I checked my settings and told the 880 to avoid dirt roads. Actually, UNPAVED ROADS, I think it said.

I keep experimenting with the choices, because I like to go a safe route, maybe not the shortest, maybe not the least traffic, but I need to have access to favorite facilities (food, rest, gas, pet areas) and to law enforcement should I have a problem. I'm accustomed to basically planning my own track, and I want the GPSr to help me schedule stops. Sometimes to assist with the route yes, but Hal is definitely not in charge of my space ship.

I have it disabled. Many times as I get closer to the traffic jam it seems to disappear. I have watched the delay time go from 15 min to 1 min in just a few minutes. I would rather make the decision myself

I still have U turns and dirt roads selected.

I used to have ferries and tollways checked, until I started taking ferries more often across Puget Sound. Then, I started taking tollways in Denver that I had to uncheck that one, too.

One day I didn't take the tollway, I got a speeding ticket at a construction zone. That's the biggest, non-productive "toll" I had to pay. "Lexus Lanes" would've been cheaper.

I have mine enabled

I had traffic with MSN Direct for over a year in the Los Angeles area. Typically, I did not follow the instructions to get off the freeways so, I did not renew my subscription.

Henry

Living in the San Francisco Bay Area where traffic is an issue I always leave it on. I rely on this feature to help me avoid slow traffic, that and trying to stay off the road during peak times.

Mine is on and it saved me from getting stuck in a major delay last night coming back from the airport. Glad the signal was picked up during the ride!

The setting for Avoid Traffic just didn't work well for me, even though I like the traffic receiver and service. The avoidance feature would be more useful if they covered ALL the roads.

So it ends up making a decision to take me off the rush-hour congested expressway because it does not know traffic is just as slow on the secondary roads during rush-hour.

I prefer leaving Automatic Avoidance off and allowing it to alert me instead. I look at the alert and if all it says is "slow traffic" and it's the peak of rush hour, I usually ignore it. Traffic is slow everywhere and there's not a gadget in the world that will help with that. If it says "accident" or something like that, that's different and I'll hit the Avoid option.

I've never used the "Traffic" avoidence on the Zumo. Depending on which vehicle I'm in / on, the car or the motorcycle, I change the avoidences as I certainly prefer the scenic two lane routes on the bike as opposed to the Interstates and other highways I would normally negotiate in the car.

hey john, exactly how i feel, and what i do.

I have the Nuvi 760 and use the included FM Traffic receiver. I have found the avoidance rerouting helpful and intelligent.

I live outside a big city and I appreciate the delay estimates even when it doesn't re-route me. It gives me the opportunity to call ahead even I expect to be late.

It doesn't re-route me every time there are traffic delays even though there are alternative routes available to my destination. I believe it evaluates the alternatives and picks the fastest route even if that happens to be through the traffic rather than around it.

I do use the traffic, it works pretty good, I just don't use the avoidance, as in NYC it is not very practical, to drive 60 miles on the service road of the expressway. or during rush hour, the local blvd have the same traffic, maybe more including the lights, but it thinks its faster only because it doesn't receive traffic data for those streets, blvd, etc.

I drove for a year in the SF Bay Area and 70% of the time the traffic info was not accurate. It changes too fast. I drive at least 1000 miles/mo.

A month or so ago when my 1 yr subscription expired I chose not to renew it. I like the traffic feature and it can help, but at $50/$130, a little too costly for a toy.

I will prob order the option on my Nuvi 785 (or whatever the next model is called) when releasd.

I disabled mine... Most of the times by the time reciever gets the traffic report it no longer exists and my unit will take me all over the place.

I turned mine off, too. All it does is take me along the feeder, even though those have traffic lights, which are usually red.

When I use it going thru downtown, by pressing the avoid button, it took me down an interesting route, which I didn't know about.

I am still experimenting and trying do decide if I want to renew my subscription.

i renewed mine, but it doesnt help me, obviosly in rush hour theres traffic, in NYC theres not many other routes to take, but its a cool feature to have the traffic info, helps a lil with arrival time, not incredibly accurate all the time, but its nice to know if theres traffic, or its clear. ahead of time.

I dont turn mine on, since many times by the time I get to the jam, it is gone. Out of town it becomes more difficult since I dont know the traffic patterns and take chances.

traffic avoidance works well in LA on MSN Direct

Which one is better. MSN, or Clear Channel?

Also, I thought I read somewhere that one needs to install something extra for MSN. Do I recall that correctly?

I let Reanne pick the majority of my routes, unless I know it's an unwise pick. But I leave my traffic avoidance on all the time.. I have been saved an hour to date of sitting on a parked freeway. even tho it took us around about way.. we still got there very close to the original arrival time, not having to sit and idle in traffic to keep the AC going during the hot months in So. Cal, is worth it in Gas saving and frustration levels.. and drivers cutting you off and forcing their way over and creating dangerous situations..

No thanks.. I don't like driving anywhere without "HAL"

What I'd like to know is exactly how it determines to reroute. when we crossed 40+ mins it rerouted us.

I think it might be the antenna. With my Nuvi 880, the antenna for MSNDirect is built into the car power cord. Cannot think of anything else.

i think msn requires a different power cord, (if u have the 760, 780 comes with it) aand i think just a software download, not sure though

I have mine off and I listen to the Local Radio for traffic. Maybe if I was in a city where it actually worked well I would use it.

This was exactly the experience I had earlier this week on the I-15 westbound near Barstow. Nuvi 760 took me onto a frontage road for no apparent reason, only to route me back on to I-15 at the next on-ramp. Frustrating!

yeah i disabled mine, i mostly use the gps to find new places. once i know the main oute, i can adjust for traffic if it becomes a routine commute

I tried it out on my friend's GPS, (not sure which one it was) and I found it to be very annoying

Clarification:

The 760 comes with the Antenna/power cord for FM Traffic. MSN is optional - Exactly the reverse on the 780.

On Sunday in the Phoenix area, the Clear Channel Traffic was claiming a 33 minutes delay on a 20 miles stretch of freeway. I didn't follow the directions to get off the freeway at about every 20 exits before it as there was no slowdown in sight. I went through the announced "hot spot" and there was absolutely nothing there. This way, I "avoided" 20 miles of standard street driving...

As a new user, it doesn't make me a believer of the traffic avoidance option. I'll run out the free subscription and will not renew if I don't get better results.

My subscription ran out and I'm not sure it's worth $60.00 a yr. to renew it. In my parts (Santa Rosa) it hardly ever get's the alerts.

I have it enabled on my 660 but I will always make a quick judgement call to follow or not follow nuvi's instructions. If the congestion isn't too bad on the freeway and traffic is still moving I will generally stay on the freeway rather than go off onto smaller surface streets.

I have a NUVI 660 with RDS TMC traffic and I do not use the traffic avoidance feature because I know the side roads nmuch better than my Nuvi, and since the side roads are not coded into the TMC traffic database, how is the device supposed to know if the side roads will be just as congested? I'd much rather use the traffic data to learn about the delays and route myself around them.

I have disabled it on my Nuvi 770. Nows it just shows an icon on the screen and I get a spoken alert, but the unit doesn't reroute me. By pressing on the icon, I can check it to see where it is on the map and decide to avoid it or not. Last night, another "18 minutes" delay alert on the 101 freeway turned out to be absolutely nothing.

Where do you enable it on the 660 at?? I thought it just suggested a new route automatically?

From the Where To screen, press the Wrench (settings)>Navigation>Avoidances. Once there, my 660 came from the factory with Traffic and U-Turns checked.

mine is disable to avoid any mis-direction, but i do check the list when traffic icon popup.

Thanks for the quick response! I went and looked at my unit when I had it plugged into the traffic receiver and found the setting then.

Before the C580 I have now, I had (and still have) a Whistler GPS. It's a fun unit with many issues and weird quirks. However, one thing I really liked were the route options it had. It had options like "Prefer Main Roads / Minimum Turns / Fastest / Shortest" and so on. The Garmin only has Fastest and Shortest I think. I really liked the Main Roads option, especially in a place I didn't know, where I could stay on bigger streets and stay out of let's say bad neighborhoods, or confusing streets with a ton of stop signs etc... Anyone else think that would be a nice option to have? Do the newer Nuvi's have this maybe?

I disable mine also. I noticed that at the start of rush hour in NYC it will recalculate a few times as the roads get congested.

It is now $60.00 for lifetime subscription.

I have the alert on all of the time.
Driving in and out of the NYC area can make things more than interesting. I don't have it auto-route me but I do look at what it finds and make my own decision.

If a major roadway is jammed on its way to a major river crossing, chances are that the ancillary routes are equally snarled (yet may not be included in the traffic details).

Sometimes it is easier to bear with a 15 minute delay than try to route away from the mess.

It is funny how sometimes the 660 encourages me to drive right through the heart of midtown Manhattan. Although technically this may be the most direct and shortest route, in reality with heavy congestion, pedestrians that will cross intersections en mass even if you have the light, more and more intersections where you cannot turn during certain times of the day and other interesting traffic and pedestrian patterns- following this path blindly can lead to a longer and more frustrating ride.

I have the alert on all of the time as well.

I am in Atlanta and find that many times traffic avoidance will route me to another road for little or no real traffic delay. But on some real bad traffic (like an accident that has the entire interstate blocked), traffic avoidance has been a great help (those little roads I am not aware of)...

I much prefer to just evaluate the alerts and make my own mind up as to avoid or not based on the gps details and the local radio stations...

jb

I believe you have it not enabled, as I do. You still see the traffic alerts, but does not reroute you.

Yep!

yes i disabled mine to.

disabled mine also, in nyc

Disabled. I check to see if the icon shows up and then pull out the cell phone and check Google maps w/ traffic to confirm. Google is usually correct while the garmin traffic has been correct about 80% of the time. I am in LA and OC counties most of the time.

Since traffic cams don't see the roads around the freeways, I've found that it usually dumps you off into traffic bad as you're trying to avoid.