When I went nuts with driving

Let me share my stupid driving expereinces with you

...It will be woth the effort if someone is able to avoid a few after reading it  

I started driving at an age of 26 after coming to US

Just to let you know that I had never driven back home in India due to two reasons - 

First it was never needed due to easy accessibility to good public transport and Secondly it's scary driving in india

I am sure people who have been driving in US all their life will go all nuts if they land on indian roads... only one rule applies on Indian roads - save your life

As a novice i did made some mistakes ... luckily they didn't turn out to be horrible.

Just one week after buying car I set off for wilmington DMV ground - all alone, without maps, without GPS - just assuming that I will be able to definetly get there as I had already been there 2-3 times with my driving teacher

As expected I lost my way and I lost it badly. It started getting on my nerves soon and I didn't knew what to do.

I just remembered one thing told by my brother - catch  I-95 south.

After asking people I somehow made to I-95 S and made it to home.

I never again dared to go outside city without GPS or maps.

Most of the driving jargons I learned 'On the Go'.

Once on  a return drive from Walmart I got hit by heavy rain.

I had put whipers on but slowly vapours started getting settled on front window reducing my visibility.

My view was completely getting blocked due to vapors and I parked my car twice... 

me and my friends used a cloth for removing vapors... all in vain

Won't have been such a pain had we known that cars have a magical nob which could have wiped off all vapours!

We realized it only later after reading manuals.

Another time on my way to Walmart I completely lost my way and ended up in a shopping mall.

.. . realizing that chances of me getting back home all my own was quite low...

I made a smart move - Go GPS.

Atleast it spared my nerves

I had lot of stupid experiences with GPS and will like to share a few 

I remember a few trips on which GPS guided us to really wierd roads.

Instead of taking freeways it went for housing colonies, abandoned roads etc

Later I realized that it was because one of my friends who had borrowed GPS few days back had set "avoid Toll" in GPS.

Poor GPS was doing its job to save us from paying toll.

Lesson 1 - Always check avoidances setting before you start on a long trip

More funny were the trips were GPS used to ask for taking random turns which had nothing to do with address.

Any guesses? 

GPS had simulator mode enabled.

This happened atleast 2-3 times.

Lesson 2 -Have simulator mode switched off when driving

Another one... my GPs has a walking mode as well... on reaching city we used it to get to walkable distances and  guess what ...

When returning back we used to miss switching it back to driving mode and GPS used to return the favor with crazy directions and unbelievable arrival time

Lesson 3 - Ensure you select driving mode in GPS before you start driving

Safe driving!