When I worked in logistics software - late 90s, just before GPS was becoming popular - we had a unit from a firm that wanted to use our mapping tech with their black box. Director duly volunteered and had one fitted. It would connect to a base station to download it's logs in NMAE format which we overlaid on the map.
(You can see where this is going ...)
So director puts his car in for a service, and the garage come and pick it up. When it was returned, we saw the mechanic had (a) left the motorway via a services, and (b) hit over 110 mph down the M5.
Annoyingly I never heard the call the director made to the garage.
I've got a mobile phone holder from a brand called Osomount which uses a strange sticky material that will stick to almost anything but certainly a "grained" dashboard.
When it ceases to stick you wash it under plain water and it becomes sticky again - I'm very impressed with it. I've seen sheets of this sticky stuff on Ebay but goodness knows what they're called - I found this link though
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you could try a sheet of that between your sucker and the dashboard
I've got a small 'sucker' clock, primed with spittle, which has remained stuck to the tiles above my cooker hob for a couple of years, despite levering the clock part out to change the time and replace the battery every three months. Priming it with water from the tap results in its falling off within hours.
I've also used spit to clean a mark on my tablet screen which withstood ordinary cleaning agents.
It obviously works for the phone by providing a dimpled grippy surface for the phone to l;ay on but it wouldn't work with a suction clamp because of the dimples and the SatNav on its own would be pointing at the roof!
No good for the dashcam, either, because the windscreen slopes the wrong way - that's not an anti-gravity device!
Same here, tucked up behind the lefthand end of the interior mirror. On a lever action sucker mount that hasn't fallen off that I can remember. Clean the screen, clean the sucker, bit of spit, position, press hard, operate lever.
Phone connects to the cars Bluetooth, if a call comes in I ignore it if it's a number/call I'm not expecting so ends up in voice mail. Texts are read out to me and I can voice reply to them if required (provided mobile data is good enough, needs 4G really).
Driving is slowly being "de-skilled". In a modern automatic all you
*need* to be able to do is select D, press the go and stop pedals as required and steer, indicators are useful for other road users but even the use of those is gaining some magical property that enables the driver of a car using indicators to blindly go where they want regardless of any other road users. The only addition in a manual is changing gear. Hill starts - automatic, lights - automatic (though they get foggy but bright conditions wrong and "helpfully" turn your lights off, or at least mine do).
I notice that the term "autonomous" has also been quietly dropped in favour of "driverless". Have they decided that a truely autonomous car is actually too difficult and they'll fudge it by allowing vehicles to "talk" to each other? Still doesn't help with the tricky problem of a ball bouncing out from a gate, will it be followed by small child hidden by the hedge/fence either side of the gate. Or even is it a ball in the first place...
Most of these things start as a gadget that is nice to have then progress through to becoming standard equipment,the next stage is they become mandatory . With dash cams how long before the recordings are required to be retained for a period by law with the Police or other government bodies having the powers to acquire any of them as evidence even if that is against the wishes of the vehicle owner. On the face of it such things are seen by some as nothing to worry about if you are an honest citizen, you may be but it won?t stop your car getting torched if a local scroat thinks your parked car contains a record of him doing a drug deal.
I *hate* seeing all that junk hanging from the interior mirror and have never ever done so.
If I drive someone else's (or a hire) car I take them down from them to.
My GPS is stuck using the std vacuum cup to a plastic disk stuck to the dash. The top of it is just about level with the bottom of the windscreen (and on the Meriva and even at 6'2" I cant see the bonnet).
My ideal GPS (and these days phone) placement is in line with the dash, or maybe slightly higher, but on the quarterlite side - to the right. So a quick flick of the eyes picks up the key detail keeping peripheral vision on the road.
I suspect my - and maybe older drivers in general (?) use of sat navs differs slightly from people who have grown up with them ... I try to have a broad idea of where it might take me before I set off, so it's just the last few turns that are really needed. But it seems from driving with younger colleagues they rely on it from the off. Meaning they can quite happily arrive at the wrong destination if they make a fist of the original address :) :)
When I've put mine there it feels 'wrong', possibly because I am so used to having pretty well *all* my stuff in the middle (interior mirror, radio, gear stick, clock / temp etc). So my GPS sits between the binnacle and the info hump in the middle of that dash and so in the same line as them and I'm still looking roughly ahead when using them.
On the Meriva (A) it has a nasty post at the front and you often have to look though the quaterlight to see if stuff is coming around mini roundabouts etc. ;-(
Same here, although I often put it on if going on more than a local journey in case of any holdups or calls to go elsewhere when on route.
;-)
Quite. I've done that but worked out that the ETA was way out before going very far (luckily in the right direction and why I didn't question it instantly).
Apart from navigation, having the ETA instantly to hand (after heavy traffic etc) is really good, along with speed limit reminders and the actual speed. The Meriva speedo is pretty well spot on but daughters Transit Connect is out (over reading) by quite a bit. So, I have to do an indicated 33 mph to be actually doing 30 (something that annoys me when following others doing a constant 27mph in a 30).
It also gives me a log of my course and speed, should I get accused of doing some very high speed when I know I wasn't (FWIW etc).
Again, maybe Garmin sucker mounts are better than others but I can't remember it ever falling off on a journey, other than when I've put it on one handed when leaving a car park or campsite against the clock etc. After a proper two handed push and lever, releasing the lever alone isn't enough to get it off again, you also have to pull the tab on the sucker itself.
I love stuff that 'just works' and my Garmin GPS's have always ticked that box (inc suckers, mounts [1] plugs, leads and updates etc) since the GPS II+ ;-)
Cheers, T i m
[1] I used RAM mounts on the motorcycles and have done thousands of miles without a mount even coming lose ... yet I could remove the GPS or the complete mount quickly and easily if required.
A few years ago I helped FiL collect a piece of furniture from a small ads sale. We're in Brum, the vendor was in Stoke.
On the return journey, FiL punched something into the satnav, and set off. I had a "huh ?" moment as we passed 2 "M6 South" signs, and an even stronger sense of alert when we followed an "M6 *North*" sign.
The problem is with that dynamic, you need to be tactful about how you intervene ... especially as I had just had a lecture from FiL on how SatNavs were only aids and no substitution for knowing where you're going. Especially as wussing out would have meant ending up in Manchester, since the old duffer had managed to call up a previous destination ...
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