Story Archives of 'Transportation'

For a lot of us, punching an address into a GPS device is a standard routine, right between putting on your seat belt and turning the key. GPS has made paper maps – and remembering directions – feel obsolete.

While that’s a huge convenience, researchers worry that we’re not using the part of our brains that form maps, and that might be permanently affecting our ability to find our way around without the electronic devices.

Joining us with more is Alex Hutchinson. He writes for the Canadian magazine The Walrus, and divides his time between Toronto and Sydney, Australia. That’s where we reached him earlier this week.

The Walrus: Global Impositioning Systems

Alex ponders the effect of GPS technology on human sense of direction:

(Photo by Premshree Pillai via Flickr/Creative Commons)

While most of the casualties we hear about from Iraq and Afghanistan involve roadside bombs and military action, not all of them are the result of combat operations. Since the US invasions of those two countries, hundreds of troops have died or been seriously injured in traffic accidents.

Car crashes are a problem at home, too. Last year about 4,000 teens were killed.

But a North Country firm and a military research center are trying to do something about both problems.