A conversation with my car GPS

Driving in the U.S., while easier than first anticipated, is not without its hazards.

I can do the whole Driving-On-The-Right and Not-Walking-Aimlessly-To-The-Passenger-Door-Expecting-It-To-Be-The-Driver-Door thing. The latter is a pretty cool feat to master, as it at least lets you look the part.

Other things, however, are less simple to overcome, as evidenced by the following, which is by no means an exhaustive list:

- my tendency to drift the car to the right, presumably because I feel like I should be on its other side

- dealing with the multitude of "Stop" signs in suburban Santa Cruz. I swear they breed while I'm sleeping. You no sooner get going that you have to stop - again.

- what to do at 4-way "Stop" signs (see what I mean about them breeding?!). This had me boggled for most of my visit last year (and people were very patient and waved me through politely. Poor, tolerant citizens). I figured it would be a case of giving way to the left, as per giving way to the right at home, but no. Turns out it's first come, best served. If two vehicles arrive at the intersection simultaneously, and require a tie-break, as it were, THEN it's giving way to the left that wins the day.

- the double lines indicating pedestrian priority. I nutted these out last year after cars kept stopping for me while waiting to cross Pacific Ave, but I had a lapse yesterday after work and nearly cleaned up a cyclist. It was one of the very few times someone here has honked a horn at me. It was deserved. I was shaken.

- core instincts. I was executing a right-hand turn yesterday (the "easy" turn over here). I looked to the left, which was clear, and started the turn, only to absolutely hit the brake when I spied oncoming traffic from the right. Never mind that they were on the other side of the road. Conditioning dies hard.

- forcing my attention to be on the road when the scenery is stunning. Similarly, having to give up lots of photo opportunities due to lack of parking.

But this morning was the best.

I had recovered from Near-Killing-Of-Cyclist Incident and was feeling all good about life on the road again, until it came to the freeway entry. This is rather tricky, because both the southbound and northbound entries involve a turn-off to the right. The southbound one comes first, and it's not the one I need to be taking (unless I want to end up in Monterey instead of at work).

I made a special mental note of this on my way to work yesterday, particularly because my dimestore-variety car GPS is somewhat unhelpful on this one:

GPS (neutral, mid-American female accent): "In point two miles, turn right".
Nat (slightly agitated): "Um, okay, well, there's this right-hand entry coming up, do you mean that one? Or perhaps one a bit further along?"
GPS: "In point two miles, turn right"
Nat: "Oh, hang on, that's miles, not kilometres. Point two miles would not be right now. Unless it means me to split the difference.....nope, look, that sign says 'South 1'. That's not what we want".
*commences anxious tapping of fingernails on end of indicator knob*
(crest a small rise, over which the northbound entry emerges)
GPS: "Turn right"
Nat: "Gotcha. Remember that one for tomorrow, Nat - WAIT UNTIL AFTER THE HILL."

Fast-forward to this morning, again approaching the freeway entries:

GPS: "In point two miles, turn right"
Nat (stricken with latent jetlag; operating at 1am mental capacity): "OK, sure, here's a freeway entry, so let's just turrrr - *sees southbound sign* - OH SHIT!!!!"
GPS: *silent*
Nat: *throws self and baby truck on mercy of commuter traffic and re-merges back into original lane*
GPS: *silent*
Nat: *indicates gratitude to tolerant Santa-Cruzian commuter via raising-of-left-hand signalling; realises this cannot be seen; raises right hand instead at which point realises must look like am doing crazy funky-driver-hands-only-dance*
GPS (brightly): "Turn right"
Nat: *turns overly sharply, having re-commenced anxious tapping of fingernails on end of indicator knob*
GPS: *sliding sound*
Nat: "Huh?"
GPS: *falls and thuds heavily onto floor*
Nat (wryly): "It's okay, I've got it from here"
GPS: *silent*
Nat: *pause*
GPS: *silent*
Nat: *giggle*

I thought it might have been a suicide attempt, but the GPS continued to issue bright yet redundant commands from the floor of the passenger side for the remainder of the journey.

(With apologies to the youngsters for the reproduction of my more colourful language, but in the interests of journalistic integrity, it had to be reported verbatim)