It's always comical when you hear or see commercials where the product promises to help save time by "getting you through the traffic" in your area. Sometimes the commercial in question is for an aftermarket GPS nav system, sometimes it's for a radio station's frequent traffic reporting system, and sometimes it's for a vehicle's nav system. But in all instances, it's total B.S. With regard to our long-term 2008 Cadillac CTS, the car can most certainly inform you of traffic conditions in your local area.
But as far as getting you through these traffic conditions? Unless there's a teleporting or flying mode I'm not aware of on our CTS, I don't see this information actually helping someone save time in their daily commute across Los Angeles...
Karl Brauer, Edmunds.com Editor in Chief @ 3,204 miles
jaguar36 says:
09:58 AM, 03/18/08
It all depends on your commute. On my current commute I have three completely different ways to go, that each take between 30-40 minutes. Except when on of them has an issue (like today when they decided to close a 2-mile stretch of I-95). Right now I have to waste time listening to traffic reports, or checking websites to hopefully hear about incidents like these. A Nav system with Traffic would be a huge help to me, as it could allow me to take a different route depending on traffic. if you've only got one route, well yeah theres not much it can do for you, but if you've got multiple options that are all about the same, knowing the traffic conditions can save you huge amounts of time.
bimmerjay says:
10:00 AM, 03/18/08
Theoretically you should enter your destination into the nav (even if you know where you're going) and let dynamic routing take you the most efficient way around the bad areas. Problem is, if EVERY route is bad it's not going to do you any good. Not to mention that data on surface streets is generally not available to the RTT system, so there could be jams of unknown magnitude that the system routes you into in the hope of avoiding a freeway backup.
ewilfong says:
11:13 AM, 03/18/08
So what's our lesson? Don't move to SoCal?
chevy598 says:
11:50 AM, 03/18/08
"So what's our lesson? Don't move to SoCal?"
ewilfong, You beat me to it. If traffics that bad, I'd start looking for a new place to live. It's not hard to see why Nissan left. Outrageous property values and perpetual gridlock can scare even the best away
louiswei says:
12:43 PM, 03/18/08
Gee, Carl, you are right on!! Last Thanksgiving I was considering upgrade my current portable unit to one that has the real time traffic function. Then my buddy asked me: What's the point, you live in LA right?
Me: Good point...
gossard267 says:
02:37 PM, 03/18/08
Relentless traffic is one of two primary reasons I'm leaving SoCal in August, after living here for 27 years. It wasn't always this way, but it's been getting steadily worse for at least 10 years. For what it's worth, absurd home prices are the second reason.
jpr18 says:
02:40 PM, 03/18/08
my X5 routes me around traffic....
tlcruz says:
05:14 PM, 03/18/08
I do not for one second miss any traffic on the 605, 405, 105 or 91!!! Granted, I miss certain things about SoCal and definitely my family&friends but I do not miss traffic. I do hate having only two lanes but I'm slowly over it. lol :)
roar02ram says:
09:02 AM, 03/19/08
Oh, Lost/Last/Las Angeles.
longcommute says:
02:02 PM, 03/19/08
Like jaguar36, I also have a long commute (~55 miles each way) with multiple options as to which freeways to take (57, 605, or even the 110) to get from home in Pasadena to work in Orange County. Currently I have to log onto sigalert.com on my Blackberry repeatedly before coming to my decision points, and it would be very nice to be able to see practically the same info pop up automatically on the navi screen. From the image that Karl Brauer posted, it looks like the CTS' display shows identical data to what I'd find online - can anyone who has used the CTS' navi confirm this?
tony1021 says:
11:09 AM, 03/26/08
Does anyone know if the new nav is heat sensitive like the lexus? Was in a tahoe with nav the other day and i had to tap the screen to give commands