Bring Back The Map

Sometimes I wonder why we still have street signs. Especially when it seems every second car these days has GPS or some other anagrammed symbol of the moronification of NZ on the dash.

We Kiwis love having shit on the dash. This is why I reckon there are so many boy racers in NZ because all those dials that do sweet fuck all, just look great on the dash. In every other country they just look ridiculous, but not here in NZ, we love that shit, almost as much as we do wearing our caps on a jaunty angle.

Before the advent of the GPS the cool thing to have suckered to the windscreen, just above the dash, was the radar detector. Some cars now have both, thus doubling their ‘this car contains a fuckstick’ quotient because not only does the driver not know where he’s going, he’s likely to be speeding when trying to get there.

Getting from point A to point B is one of the most human of attributes but evolution seems determined to remove it from our brains. Which is a shame here in NZ, more than most places, because for a long time we were proud of our ability to be resourceful with things like maps and compasses.

It was this resourcefulness that led thousands of boys like me to things like Cubs and Scouts to learn orienteering and knot tying. But then some Scout leaders out in Whitby went and fingered their entire troop and stuffed it up for everybody. I bet they use a GPS these days.

We could still stop the rot but for some I fear it’s too late, like those who use theirs on the motorway which are, for the most part, long and straight with exits to places like J Town clearly labelled. Or those that rely on theirs to get them around the area they’ve lived in all their lives. It’s almost as if they live in fear that one of these mornings they’re going to wake up and by the way of some celestial miracle the local council will have completely rearranged all the roads in the city.

Or maybe they’re just dumb. Why just the other day I drove through P Town and couldn’t help but feel a little bit dumber for the experience. Why is that I wonder?

If you don’t have a GPS fear not - you can still use Goggle Earth on the laptop which you could mount to the dash. Google Earth allows you to zoom in on the place you’re looking for from a satellite. In outer space. Which is handy really when your think that your car, thanks to a little thing called gravity, is rooted to the road.

Google Maps on the other hand lets you see your destination in glorious two dimensions because some perve in a fan photographed the place. A pity then that he didn’t do the same to the street signs because it might’ve gone a long way to reminding people just how you get from one place to another by linking several of them together.

Admittedly a GPS might be great, in downtown Baghdad, or if we were to remove our entire street signage because Ze Germans are coming, but fortunately we are faced with neither. So don’t buy one just because every other clown has one. Bring back the map I say.

Besides, a map is much cheaper and you'll get a bigger satisfaction woody from using one than you will a GPS.

Our home made GPS works a treat...