How A GPS Can Help You Save On Gasoline

Many of us have gotten used to living with a GPS (global positioning satellite) on our dashboards. We rely on the little devices to help us find our way through unfamiliar cities by telling us exactly where to turn. However, with gas prices on the rise, a new generation of GPS devices is helping us do more than just keep from getting lost. They’re actually helping us save on gas.

The most common ways to let a GPS help you save on gas is by asking it to help you find the quickest, not the shortest route. The shortest route, point to point, might be filled with stop signs and other impediments that make you waste gas. Better to ask your GPS for the quickest route.

Additionally, most GPS devices allow you to mark hundred of your favorite locations, places you go to again and again. In GPS-talk, these are called “waypoints.”  When running errands, your GPS will easily be able to map the quickest route for your multiple stops, saving you a considerable amount of gas.

And if that’s not enough, the next generation in GPS utility has begun with Dash, a device that incorporates aspects of social networking that allow it to tell you more than just where you are. It can also tell you where the traffic is.

Dash makes use of both a  two-way satellite connection and an internet connection. The internet connection allows users to send information as well as receive it, a feature that makes the traffic reports generated by Dash both detailed and up-to-the-minute in a way no eye-in-the-sky traffic reporter can match.

That’s because as you drive, Dash is constantly transmitting anonymous information on both your speed and your position. When you slow down, that’s beamed to a satellite. When you speed up, that’s transmitted, too. In addition, some drivers use the Dash’s internet connection to access social networking sites like Twitter to post information about traffic tie-ups.

That means Dash is always calculating your route using both maps and real-time traffic information.

The sort of personalized, detailed and immediately updated traffic reports Dash is capable of delivering must have radio traffic reporters shaking in their shoes.

Radio stations traditionally cover major impediments on major highways. But Dash lets you discover what’s going on all around you, even on the smaller highways and byways, by delivering real-time traffic information that’s based on input from every other driver in your location with a Dash device.

In addition to telling you exactly where the traffic tie-ups are and how to avoid them, Dash is also capable of telling you where on your route you’ll find the cheapest gas. By using it’s internet access to get data from sites like GasBuddy, a motorist can often save as much as 20% by choosing the cheapest station in their area to top off their tank.

Dash was the first GPS out of the gate with this new social networking technology, but other manufacturers have units in the works. If you haven’t yet joined the leagues of GPS users, the rising cost of gas may be the perfect excuse to investigate what they have to offer.

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