Can you handle detours? (Literal traffic ones)

[Carrie12345]

I used to be terrified of detours, especially when I first moved to this area because no GPS was accurate yet. Like, I still had to give people verbal directions to my house because Mapquest couldn’t find me. But almost all apps have been solid for the past decade, so it’s not as big of a deal now.

Yesterday, there was an accident at a major intersection near my house, and Dh responded to it on his way home with pizza, so I drove down to get my kids’ dinner, lol.   
As I was walking back to my car, another driver with a fancy new truck (so guaranteed to have navigation) was REALLY upset about the intersection being closed. I told him to turn around, make two lefts and he’d be back at the road he wanted, but he could not process those instructions. He wanted to just be let through. “I’ve never gone that way before!”

I finally told him to just follow me, and the guy was like, “But where are you going?!?”  Gee, I thought I’d just carry this giant pizza to my car and lure you and your passenger to my cave. “The same place as you, dude.”

I am an anxious person with adhd executive function issues, so I’m not unfamiliar with dreading a reroute, but come on!  Two lefts! On 25mph neighborhood streets, no less! When we all have electronic maps!!!

Honestly, it made me feel like a super strong woman saving a weak little man, but that’s not the point.

Do little detours freak you out in current technological times?

[Bambam]

I'm fine with detours. Usually they are clearly marked - and most cities have some sort of general grid system layout, so even if they aren't marked, you can generally figure out how to get around an accident/whatever.  Now, if I were travelling, it was raining heavily and nighttime and a city known for not being the safest, I might be a little nervous driving through a detour, but I would not freak out. 

[marbel]

I am not bothered (because I have GPS and I trust it, mostly), and I get you about the simplicity of the detour. But my people with ADHD and driving anxiety would probably have a hard time with the simple instruction of "2 lefts" in an unfamiliar area. Or even one that was slightly familiar. Even with GPS. It's a disturbance in the force. 

[Faith-manor]

P.S.A. if you cannot handle detours, do NOT come to Michigan this summer. If you cannot handle road construction, bypass this state. 

Michigan had always had two seasons: winter and construction. My kids laughing say that the orange road cone is the state flower.

It is exponentially worse this year. Senators Stabenow and Peters worked with Another to get a ton of federal dollars to help rebuild the decaying infrastructure. Great! Awesome! Finally. BUT M-DOT got it in its head that ALL of it should be done at once. I am not kidding. m-DOT also screwed up believing that they would be able to hire a lot more people for the construction crews than they have actually been able to hire. Tearing up doesn't require so many hands. Building it back, many more people needed. So it is all torn up, and it is going to be "forever plus a Boob's age " (to coin a Michigan rural saying) before it is done.

There is one lane traffic jam traffic on I-94 in multiple areas for miles and miles at a time, same on I-69, massive not fun detour on US23, 20 miles or so of one lane traffic and constant switching of lanes on US127, 696, 496, 275, the list goes on and on, and then numerous bridges on state and county roads being torn out and rebuilt causing detours everywhere. We have bridge here that had been out for two years, and according to the state, it will be five more years until they actually have time to do anything about it. For the residents on that road, it is a 21 mile detour to go what used to be 5 miles to the grocery store if one is determined to stay on paved roads. No joke, and at current gas prices extra maddening. (PS, road commission rarely plows those dirt roads in the winter so the 21 miles thing has no short cuts from mid-December through March).

So if you come here, do not believe your GPS, Google Maps, WAZE, etc. Get out an old fashioned atlas. Look for the most convoluted way you can go north without an interstate or freeway of any kind. In order to visit my middle son four hours from here. I have to use a couple of small state roads and then a long portion of old Route 66. Otherwise I would be out on the freeway in construction gridlock going 10-20 miles per hour in a sea of semis.

 

[Junie]

I would have a hard time with the directions "just take two lefts".  I would want to make sure I knew exactly where those lefts were.

[Pawz4me]

Detours around my own area--roads that I have almost six decades of experience with and knowledge of--bother me not one whit. Yawn worthy. I have a good sense of the general direction I need to go even if I don't know specific streets or turns. I can still get where I need to go. But when in strange territory they certainly do bother me. GPS often isn't very helpful because it tries to take you back to the portion of the road that's closed. Once when RV'ing through rural Indiana we had an epic issue like that. The two-lane state highway was closed for multiple miles and detour signs were pretty much non-existent. The ones we could follow were taking us down what appeared to be Amish buggy trails. Beautiful territory, but not where we needed to be in our biggish RV. Our GPS very unhelpfully kept trying to route us back to the portion of road that was closed. Thankfully we had our trusty atlas with us and soon relied on it instead of the useless detour signs and GPS.

[Kassia]

I can handle a detour in a familiar area but not in an unfamiliar one.  

[Arcadia]

Our GPS has the traffic function but doesn’t capture all the road closures. So my husband gets agitated because we can’t trust GPS completely and because detours due to road closures usually meant a traffic jam for us. It is worse if it is sunset and we are on a road trip because some detours are on dark side roads and we aren’t familiar with the area. On our local roads, I have memorize our routes and alternative routes so we aren’t worried about detours on dark side roads. 
There are times when Apple maps is a lot more accurate than our GPS. Most times I just memorize routes. 
My husband can’t understand directions so two left’s won’t be useful to him whether driving or walking. Instructions like make a left at the gas station and another left at <street name> would make him less worried about being lost. I have told him to follow the public buses before all the way home. 

[Terabith]

Detours make me incredibly anxious unless it’s an area I know forwards and backwards.  I have no sense of direction.  It is very, very hard for me to learn my way around, and prior to electronic maps/ GPS, I could only memorize a very few routes and they all started at my house.  So I couldn’t go from work to the grocery store, even if it was closer, unless I drove home first.  Getting lost results in major panic.  Detours mean that my gps no longer works.  Unless it’s very short and crystal clear, detours mess up my day in a major way.  

[Terabith]

4 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

P.S.A. if you cannot handle detours, do NOT come to Michigan this summer. If you cannot handle road construction, bypass this state. 

Michigan had always had two seasons: winter and construction. My kids laughing say that the orange road cone is the state flower.

It is exponentially worse this year. Senators Stabenow and Peters worked with Another to get a ton of federal dollars to help rebuild the decaying infrastructure. Great! Awesome! Finally. BUT M-DOT got it in its head that ALL of it should be done at once. I am not kidding. m-DOT also screwed up believing that they would be able to hire a lot more people for the construction crews than they have actually been able to hire. Tearing up doesn't require so many hands. Building it back, many more people needed. So it is all torn up, and it is going to be "forever plus a Boob's age " (to coin a Michigan rural saying) before it is done.

There is one lane traffic jam traffic on I-94 in multiple areas for miles and miles at a time, same on I-69, massive not fun detour on US23, 20 miles or so of one lane traffic and constant switching of lanes on US127, 696, 496, 275, the list goes on and on, and then numerous bridges on state and county roads being torn out and rebuilt causing detours everywhere. We have bridge here that had been out for two years, and according to the state, it will be five more years until they actually have time to do anything about it. For the residents on that road, it is a 21 mile detour to go what used to be 5 miles to the grocery store if one is determined to stay on paved roads. No joke, and at current gas prices extra maddening. (PS, road commission rarely plows those dirt roads in the winter so the 21 miles thing has no short cuts from mid-December through March).

So if you come here, do not believe your GPS, Google Maps, WAZE, etc. Get out an old fashioned atlas. Look for the most convoluted way you can go north without an interstate or freeway of any kind. In order to visit my middle son four hours from here. I have to use a couple of small state roads and then a long portion of old Route 66. Otherwise I would be out on the freeway in construction gridlock going 10-20 miles per hour in a sea of semis.

 

Michigan is now crossed off my destination list.  Thais sounds like one of the layers of hell. 

[wintermom]

I'm usually fine with detours. I'm pretty directionally-confident, even when I'm wrong. 😉  Turning around and backtracking to find my way back if I make a mistake doesn't bother me. I never use GPS.

Edited July 21, 2022 by wintermom

[Annie G]

I’m usually chill with a detour unless I’m on my way to something time dependent. I have anxiety about being late for things- so if I have a doctor appointment, tickets to a movie or show, or even just on my way to meet someone at a specific time, a detour will throw me off. It makes me lose my focus, and just makes my ability to handle the detour worse.  
Also, it depends on the length of the detour. Where we used to live a detour was generally a block or two. Here, I had to detour around a parade route on July 4 and it took us 7 MILES to get back to the road we’d been on. I felt so lost and had no idea if I was going the right way. And of course it wasn;t marked, they just signaled us to follow the car ahead of us. 

[happi duck]

An official detour with signs would be no problem.   I'd follow the signs.  Around here they are consistently accurate.

A surprise road closure for an accident would depend on some things. 

If I was stress free at the moment I would either give a different route a try on my own if in my area or check gps if not familiar.  If I were anxious about something already it would throw me.

Two lefts wouldn't be helpful directions to me and I probably wouldn't want to follow a stranger.  I wouldn't fear being lured to a cave but I'd rather wait for the accident to clear than trust a stranger.

 

[Junie]

I had to take an accidental detour one time when I missed an exit driving from Baltimore to Pennsylvania to visit my parents.  Some of my kids kind of panicked, but I told them that as long as we were travelling north, there was no way we could miss Pennsylvania.  And if we could get to Pennsylvania, I would know my way home.

[Junie]

Also, I refuse to use a gps.  I think it's because I don't like being told what to do. 😉

[fraidycat]

In a regular vehicle, without a time crunch of some sort, a detour is no big deal to me at all. I have a sense of direction, so I know how to keep going in the general direction I need to go, or get back to that direction if backtracking is required. 

Now, if I were pulling a trailer, in an oversized vehicle, etc., I'd be more nervous about the ability to turn around, back up, or the side roads (dirt/gravel detours off a highway) to handle the weight of the vehicle.

My DH, without a clearly marked detour, I fear would go an extra long adventure on longer detours due to his lack of direction-sense. He has, more than once, tried to turn back in the direction we came from when making a pit stop on road trips. Be even he could make two left turns around one intersection in town and get back to the main road.

[prairiewindmomma]

No, I drive all over heck and yon with electronic maps. If I'm going deep into the forest where the electronic maps drop off, I go with paper maps---but detours are generally mapped so carefully there that following a detour isn't a problem.

I REALLY hate oral directions like "take two lefts". I need street names or landmarks to verify my turns. People can sometimes be unreliable direction givers otherwise. I've met too many people who don't know their right from their left or east from south, iykwim.

[Jann in TX]

I'm not usually thrilled-- especially when they are in an area I have not driven in before.  GPS makes me nervous as I need to see the WHOLE picture!

I did have one positive experience last week.  I needed to take DD to a Dr appointment.   There was a major accident on the interstate so GPS had us take a detour.  It ended up only saving us 2-3 minutes because it was so out of the way-- BUT we got to view some beautiful farm land and see some very cute baby cows!

[fairfarmhand]

1 hour ago, Terabith said:

Detours make me incredibly anxious unless it’s an area I know forwards and backwards.  I have no sense of direction.  It is very, very hard for me to learn my way around, and prior to electronic maps/ GPS, I could only memorize a very few routes and they all started at my house.  So I couldn’t go from work to the grocery store, even if it was closer, unless I drove home first.  Getting lost results in major panic.  Detours mean that my gps no longer works.  Unless it’s very short and crystal clear, detours mess up my day in a major way.  

Twinsies.

I don't know how people manage to follow directions like, take a left and then go a quarter mile south. (HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHICH DIRECTION SOUTH IS?) I could probably manage in a flat place like Florida, but I would totally have to stop my car and orient myself to the sun.  Here? In Tennessee in all the hills and hollows? Ugh.

I don't know what is wrong with me, but I hate directions. 

I have terrible dreams where I am in places like hotels and subdivisions where everything looks exactly the same and I'm trying to find my family. (yes, I can get lost in a hotel, parking garage or office building)

[rebcoola]

Detours are no big deal most are pretty straightforward even if their isn't a marked detour their typically streets that run parallel and it's not hard to get back to where you want to be.

[Terabith]

16 minutes ago, fairfarmhand said:

Twinsies.

I don't know how people manage to follow directions like, take a left and then go a quarter mile south. (HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHICH DIRECTION SOUTH IS?) I could probably manage in a flat place like Florida, but I would totally have to stop my car and orient myself to the sun.  Here? In Tennessee in all the hills and hollows? Ugh.

I don't know what is wrong with me, but I hate directions. 

I have terrible dreams where I am in places like hotels and subdivisions where everything looks exactly the same and I'm trying to find my family. (yes, I can get lost in a hotel, parking garage or office building)

Exactly!!!  In Denver, I knew the mountains were to the west, but anywhere else I've ever lived?  Cardinal directions make zero sense.  It took me until college before I solidly had left and right down.  Roads curve.  There are hills.  It's a nightmare.  I, too, get lost in hotels and parking garages.  And the more panicked I get, the more lost I get.  I cannot reverse directions/ go backwards to get home.  I cannot remember directions.  I had a huge burst of freedom when I discovered mapquest, because it meant I could print out directions to places I'd never been before, and when GPS came on the scene, it was like the world had opened to me.  I actually much preferred using a Garmin in my car over google or apple maps, because I could tell it to give me a different route.  Google or apple maps will just keep trying to reroute me to the route they've determined is the best, which isn't necessarily okay if there's a detour.  

[athena1277]

I hate when I’m on a road trip to somewhere unfamiliar and Apple Maps wants me to get off the interstate on a random exit.  Those seemingly random shortcuts freak me out.  It just feel safer to stay on the interstate than to save 3 minutes.

It did save us once, however.  We were moving the in-laws to a new home 8 hours away the day after Christmas.  One SIL had left ahead of everyone because all but my family way going to her house that night before unloading the 2 (yes, 2) big Uhauls.  She was stuck at a standstill for over an hour due to a wreck.  A BIL driving the first Uhaul called us as we neared the area and said they were stuck due to a second wreck and to not go that way.  Thankfully about that time Siri offered to save us a lot of time with a detour.  It was dark and unfamiliar, but apparently Siri sent a lot of people the same way, because there were dozens of cars making the exact turns, so it wasn’t too bad.

[fairfarmhand]

1 hour ago, Terabith said:

Exactly!!!  In Denver, I knew the mountains were to the west, but anywhere else I've ever lived?  Cardinal directions make zero sense.  It took me until college before I solidly had left and right down.  Roads curve.  There are hills.  It's a nightmare.  I, too, get lost in hotels and parking garages.  And the more panicked I get, the more lost I get.  I cannot reverse directions/ go backwards to get home.  I cannot remember directions.  I had a huge burst of freedom when I discovered mapquest, because it meant I could print out directions to places I'd never been before, and when GPS came on the scene, it was like the world had opened to me.  I actually much preferred using a Garmin in my car over google or apple maps, because I could tell it to give me a different route.  Google or apple maps will just keep trying to reroute me to the route they've determined is the best, which isn't necessarily okay if there's a detour.  

Nope. I can't either.

And when I print out a map, I have to physically turn the paper on the car seat to keep myself oriented.

I've never felt so free as when i got a Garmin. 

[BlsdMama]

Waze. Waze knows all things before I come to the detour. I love Waze. 

[Faith-manor]

3 hours ago, Terabith said:

Michigan is now crossed off my destination list.  Thais sounds like one of the layers of hell. 

Oh, and it gets worse. Michiganders are unable to read maps. Like, this is NOT a thing anymore. Rand McNally does not exist to them. Soooooo, on Easter, Memorial Day weekend, 4th of July, and Labor Day, they ALL, something like I don't know, five million it seems, head north at 3 pm on I75. All of them. Every one of them. It is like salmon going home to spawn! I am not freaking kidding. This should be studied for the incredible, psychological phenomenon it is. As if five million people went to Vegas, got hypnotized at the show and were told "you must tow your trailer up north on the holidays on Friday at 3 pm or you will die", and then the next time they hear the word " holiday", they are programmed to do this.

2.5 million of them do it on free fishing weekend if it coincides with Father's Day because the average Michigan wife is NOT stupid, and knows that if she programs Buford and Petunia to tell daddy they want to take him fishing for daddy day, he will look at their innocent, chocolate smeared faces, and acquiesce spending the days doing nothing but being caught in the ear by hooks, baiting them after removing them from his flesh, and then removing leeches and snapping turtles from those same hooks all day long. This seems fair since most of these guys will.not.cook. on Mother's Day and insist on making Grimhilda wait in line for three hours with Buford and Petunia in tow, ready to eat the people in line if necessary like a reenactment of the Donner Party at the Applebee's.

This is Michigan. I do.not.know.what.to.tell.you. If you feel inclined to come at these times of the year, just hear the immortal words of Star Trek IV, the Voyage Home, in your head, "Save Yourselves! Avoid the planet earth at all costs!" Then just substitute Michigan for earth and stay home. This way no harm will come to you. Memorial Day I75 gridlock is not a sport to be attempted by newbies!

Edited July 21, 2022 by Faith-manor

[Faith-manor]

3 hours ago, happi duck said:

An official detour with signs would be no problem.   I'd follow the signs.  Around here they are consistently accurate.

A surprise road closure for an accident would depend on some things. 

If I was stress free at the moment I would either give a different route a try on my own if in my area or check gps if not familiar.  If I were anxious about something already it would throw me.

Two lefts wouldn't be helpful directions to me and I probably wouldn't want to follow a stranger.  I wouldn't fear being lured to a cave but I'd rather wait for the accident to clear than trust a stranger.

 

Nope. In Michigan, M-dot an organization run by people with the attention span of a gnat, will begin a long detour many miles, on side roads that constantly twist and turn. They will make sure to include some roads for whom the road signs have all been stolen. After about three signs, they start chasing butterflies or picking wildflowers for their hair or chasing cars and barking, not really sure, but the rest of the signs do not go up. At the very top of this organization is someone with the strategic mentality of Megamind. Honestly, the citizens of Michigan should get freaking awards for what we put up with eight months of every year.

Also, if you want to go to the U.P., and not route through Wisconsin, just remember that you have almost five miles of suspension bridge that is closed several days per year (most of them occurring during the winter, but occasionally during the summer) for high winds or falling ice that can kill you. I love to drive the bridge, but some people ought not to attempt it. Now that said, the state knows some of y'all aren't up to the task, and if you pull off in Mackinaw City and call the advertised, toll free number, someone will come along in a reasonable time, and drive your vehicle over. But there is no car ferry across. I wish there was. I love ferries!

If you got to Detroit, there will be many Michigan lefts. If you don't know what a Michigan left is, don't go there. Oh, Kalamazoo has them too. In addition, you out of town folk need to know that in Detroit on I75 and 94, the posted speed limits is merely a suggestion but definitely not a rule to the local folks, and when the automobile factories let out the first shit at 3 pm, the average speed rivals that of the Indianapolis 500. So if someone gets on your tail when you are doing 85 in a 70 and honks, you did not imagine this. You are indeed witnessing Spring Car Racing on a congested interstate. I am neither jesting nor joking when I say that police sit every so many miles on the side NOT because they are dumb enough to try to siphon off a car and write it a ticket in that mess, but to make everyone think they might consider it in order to try to keep the speed under 100. I am not exaggerating. We know LEO's from the burbs there.

Also if you go to Mackinaw, they are working on the exit ramp down by the fort. You have to get off the exit before, and drive through downtown. Now that is not a big deal except that tourists are also insanely addicted to Mackinaw Fudge, like cocaine, LSD, addictions and you have to play chicken with them on every street and intersection. If the direct path to that fudge lies between your car and their body, they will attempt to defy the laws of physics to get to that fudge ahead of the next zombie headed that direction. So be aware of the pedestrian landscape.

Edited July 21, 2022 by Faith-manor

[Terabith]

So, what exactly is the appeal of the Upper Peninsula?  

Is the fudge worth it?

What is a Michigan left?

[Faith-manor]

3 hours ago, Terabith said:

So, what exactly is the appeal of the Upper Peninsula?  

Is the fudge worth it?

What is a Michigan left?

Okay, first of all the U.P. (like the very wild, Northern Minnesota) is the Alaska of the lower 48. It is absolutely gorgeous, waterfalls (Tahquamenon is pretty special), trout streams, Porcupine Mountains (not to be missed), Copper Harbor, and bordered on both sides by Great Lakes that from the naked eye looking across seem like oceans, and they actually do behave like oceans. Lakes Michigan, Superior, and northern Lake Huron can even be surfed upon, and they look pure blue as you gaze across.

Out in the middle of Lake Superior is Isle Royale National Park one of the wildest, most remote NP's in the 48. You have to ferry to it, and it takes 45 minutes to get there. No vehicles, and you can only take what you can backpack in. Wolves are studied in the park so camp with caution because there is a nice size pack of them. In the winter, what appear to be ice tsunamis form along the beaches as the tides come in bringing slushy water to the already frozen shallower water. These things look like massive ice sculptures. 

Yoopers (U.P. Michiganders) are some of the friendliest and most helpful people in the world. 

Mackinaw City, at the tippy top of the Lower Pen, has a fur trading outpost and British Fort that has been well excavated and restored. It is super neat to tour. The town is fairly touristy, and if you have never had my husband's family's secret fudge recipe before then you will for sure think Mackinac Fudge is all that. You can take the fairy to Mackinac Island where much of the village and all of the fort was restored as well as the Grand Hotel (Google for images). The town is delightful to walk, the fort is massive and worth the walking tour, and if you get tired you could splurge for a carriage ride or rent a bike and go all the way around the island. The views pretty great from the fort which was built before the Revolution. Some of the colloquialisms in the U.P. are also unique because after running the Huron, Erie, and Ojibwa people's off their lands (😡😡😡) , the British colonized it but only after the French and Finnish people had been there for a while fur trapping. In the Keeweenaw, there are still people who speak Finnish, and the little college in Hancock offers classes in Finish. 

In Sault Ste. Marie, you will find the Soo Locks which are part of the Sea way allowing freighters to make their way through the St. Mary River and into either Lake Superior or Lake Huron, and by extension of Lake Huron into Lake Michigan and then to Chicago. The International Bridge provides the border crossing with Canada.

Most people who come to this U.P. from out of state are pretty in love with it when they leave IF they are outdoorsy people. 

ETA: if you make it to the Keweenaw in July or August, you need to stop by Jampot. Jampot is where there is a Benedictine Monastery, and the monks specialize in Thimbleberry Jam and artisan loaves of bread. This is not to be missed! My middle son did some water ecology study with Michigan Tech (the geeky science university in Houghton) in the Copper Harbor area and spent two weeks living off Jampot peanut butter and jam sandwiches. The stuff is legendary. Also, the abbey is really beautiful.

Edited July 22, 2022 by Faith-manor

[Faith-manor]

Now, as to Michigan lefts, basically you have to hang a right, to get into the left lane immediately, to go through a turn around, to get back on the road way in the direction you wanted. Here is a diagram.

[Carrie12345]

6 hours ago, Junie said:

I had to take an accidental detour one time when I missed an exit driving from Baltimore to Pennsylvania to visit my parents.  Some of my kids kind of panicked, but I told them that as long as we were travelling north, there was no way we could miss Pennsylvania.  And if we could get to Pennsylvania, I would know my way home.

That reminds me of when I used to be an extra brave person, lol.
When I was 18/19, we’d decide we wanted to see the ocean, and just go east and south. We knew we’d hit it eventually!
Today Me could never.

[Kassia]

4 minutes ago, Carrie12345 said:

That reminds me of when I used to be an extra brave person, lol.
When I was 18/19, we’d decide we wanted to see the ocean, and just go east and south. We knew we’d hit it eventually!
Today Me could never.

Same!  I wonder what happens to some of us as we get older...

[SHP]

Detours only bother me when:

They use an "End Roadwork" sign to prop up a "Roadwork Ahead" sign.

There are multiple uncoordinated detours and closures and I find that it is impossible to reach my destination because the roads are closed or one way streets going the wrong direction.

I cannot find the bus stop because the stop for the first detour is not a stop on the 3rd Wednesday afternoon of the month, unless the 3rd Wednesday follows a blue moon. There is an exception for 3rd Wednesday's that do not follow a blue moon when the ground hogs are staging a protest in the park, then the bus will be on the original detoured route but will not stop to pick up passengers due to concerns about driver safety from ground hogs.

It is faster to walk than drive, but walking is deadly because the sidewalks are closed due to construction forcing one to walk in traffic and no one knows where they are going and don't have the ability to try and read and comprehend all the signs AND watch for pedestrians.

 

[SHP]

I LOVE detours that make my street impossible for non residents to navigate so they stop trying to pretend they can. Not that I ever said screw it and went to the next block and went the wrong way on a one way street to reach my driveway. Nope. Never. 

[Farrar]

I find that detours are often poorly marked. They tell you to go a certain way and then... nothing. If you don't know what to do next, that's a problem.

If you're in a weird area where it's hard to go around, I find that GPS is sometimes counterproductive. It just leads you back to the intersection or stretch of road that's blocked. 

 

[SKL]

I wouldn't say detours majorly bother me, but they do impact my stress level if my arrival time matters.  Because I've been in situations where the accident ahead of me caused me to be stuck where I was for well over an hour.

I have also had GPS lie to me and thoroughly confuse me.  For a while I thought maybe it was my own issues with dyslexia and poor sense of direction, but I have proof.  For example, GPS will say "go west toward [Eastern city]."  I've also been sent around the same block multiple times by GPS.  So yeah, it is a bit stressful when I don't have time for that.

Of course it's a lot better now than before GPS.  I was half an hour late to my brother's wedding because I didn't know there was a detour.  The detour was so long, it even crossed state lines.  I know you are supposed to leave time for the unexpected, but who expects that long of a detour?  😛

And I'm sure OP's directions were accurate, but a lot of people's aren't.  I would have a hard time visualizing what "two lefts" meant in a new location.  But again, maybe that's just me.

[Carrie12345]

The wide range of responses makes me feel better about not liking detours in general, lol.

I still think this one was kind of weird. The ONLY destinations for this road are the small neighborhood on the map, and the gated neighborhood we were both going to, less than a mile from the intersection. There are no other outlets. He entered through the gates instead of stopping to get a visitor’s pass so, if he doesn’t live here, it still wasn’t his first time.
(Red accident, green truck guy, blue my car.)

 

[Ausmumof3]

They stress me out a lot.

[mom2scouts]

On 7/21/2022 at 12:23 PM, Terabith said:

Michigan is now crossed off my destination list.  Thais sounds like one of the layers of hell. 

Cross off Ohio too. We say that the traffic situation is "you can't get there from here". Almost every highway is under construction in my area and every exit has been closed at some point. They change everything weekly so nobody knows what's going on and it looks like a giant video game with cars and trucks moving all over the place trying to find the right exit and detour. If you are on interstate A and want to go east, you can't just get off on the exit to Interstate B. You have to exit early, head many miles west, take another exit to go north, take another exit to go east, travel through the city where every highway is under construction and then you're back to where the original exit was. I have driving anxiety, but sometimes I can't avoid these highways and have to plan my route very carefully. I honestly think getting lost in this city a few years ago is what caused my driving anxiety. My GPS kept trying to take me through a closed road, my normal road was torn up and closed, some of the neighborhoods near there aren't known to be the safest areas, and I couldn't find my way back to a familiar area. I'm OK in areas I know and having better GPS that picks up on closed roads has helped, but detours are stressful.

[Clarita]

I should be less chill with detours because after hearing you take two lefts I would be fine and hop into my car to go. Then a few blocks later be there trying to figure out exactly what left is with my fingers. I'm so bad with directions. Then spend 20min trying to tell my GPS to avoid the detour.

[Tree Frog]

I don't usually mind detours, but as I've aged, I like them less and less. I used to see detours as an adventure to see an area I don't usually see. 

I can't remember verbal directions easily unless they're very simple. They go in one ear and out the other and sometimes what sticks isn't in the right order or the info doesn't even go together. I've had problems with Google taking me in circles or the most circuitious route possible. When that happens, I have to pull over and study the map. I don't have a screen in my car, just the phone.

[regentrude]

Unless I am in an unknown city with lots of one-way streets ( or the multitude of closed exits mentionedabove), I have no issue with detours. GPS has a *map* - no need to listen to annoying attempts to direct you back to the old route. I can just look. 

I like directions using cardinal directions because they are precise. I  know in which direction I am driving; there's a map on my screen in the car.

Now this said, sometimes a detour is a pita. Like the time there was congestion at Eisenhower tunnel on I 70 and DH tried to detour...only there aren't enough roads close by and it added several hours 🙂 But out in the country, we sometimes just drive by feel.

Edited July 23, 2022 by regentrude

[Mrs Tiggywinkle]

I hate detours, but I am really glad to discover I am not the only one who’s husband responds to a fire call with my dinner and I have to go to the scene to pick it up.

That is all. 

[klmama]

Detours don't faze me a bit.  I've been lost many times, including in US inner cities, in foreign countries, and way out in the boonies where there were very few people at all.  I have always found someone kind enough to give me directions.  And afterward I have often SMH at myself for the messes I could have walked into, but somehow didn't.  God provides.

[Tree Frog]

12 hours ago, regentrude said:

But out in the country, we sometimes just drive by feel.

I, too, have driven by feel. I love exploring new places. Unfortunately for me, if I think I'm going in the right direction, I'm wrong. If I think I'm going in the wrong direction, I doubt myself because I'm always wrong, and continue going in the wrong direction. I don't have a sense of direction. It frustrates dh who can get anywhere without a map. When I lived in CO, the mountains were always to the west. When I lived in CA, the oceas was always to the left. When I moved to the midwest, I found lots of new places, usually in the wrong direction. 😂

[Elizabeth86]

No! One of the many things that makes me anxious. This is why I never drive more than an hour from my house. 🤣