Driving in Los Angeles, you've probably seen it all: distracted drivers talking on their cell phones, putting on the makeup, eating a full meal with a knife and fork, all while trying to weaving in between massive trucks on the 405. And all the while commute times keep increasing as we're forced to share the road with these tools. So it comes as a slight relief to read the latest article on navigating traffic from the Christian Science Monitor. Those Christian Scientists might eschew all medicine, but they're not about to give up the gadgets that make commuting just a little more bearable.
This time they take a look at the spectrum of devices and technologies designed to bypass the worst of LA traffic: from the relatively cheap TrafficGauge, a 3-by-5 inch LCD rendering of Los Angeles' freeways that goes for $80 and a monthly subscription fee of $5-7 to the more expensive Magellan, TomTom and Garmin, that range from $600-800, excluding subscription fees. Thats a lot of scratch to shave a couple of minutes off the drive, especially since the more expensive options aren't even real-time, while TrafficGauge gets its info from traffic monitoring systems on the freeways - and is only available in Seattle, San Francisco and LA.