GPS/Garmin after apocalypse?

[gladys]

This morning I drove an infrequently driver friend to a place where she's gonna have a job interview in a few days. Her husband and son INSISTED on programming their Garmin for her whereas the simpliest route was patently obvious to me, down the interstate NOT on the Adirondack backroads like the Garmin said. After receiving some of the worst directions you could ever imagine-including being told to "make a U-turn" twice-she turned the @#$%^^&* thing off and we followed some written directions. She was freaking out, but all I could think of was wondering whether in a PA situation caused by a disease and not an EMP, would those nasty GPS in your car still work? If so, may the Goddess help us.....there's a story in here for some ambitious writer-not me-about some poor survivors getting routed from pillar to post with directions of similar quantity to the ones we had this morning.
The other thing I wondered about while admiring the scenery was do they still teach map skills in schools? Is there going to be a whole segment of the population incapable of reading a map?

P.S., my friend finally agreed with me that taking the interstate was FAR simpler than our lovely tour of the back end of beyond near Warrensburg NY.

[edwin]

In unelightened times it was claimed that approximately half the population was incapable of reading a map while the other 50% refused to ask directions.

It is actually quite serious though if people are growing up map illiterate (is there a word for it?). On the other hand our eldest son sorted out a guide who had lost his way while they were on a trip up a small mountain in the Himalayas and amist came down by using GPS (and his nous).

I am still very proud of myself for navigating a works group to a national library meeting using the directions for the previous meeting which was in a different place. The rest of the group thought me a plonker but that only showed their lack of judgement and a failure to realise that in essence all maps are the same.

[andyp]

Gladys, I believe that GPS systems would work for a while. However, the satellites require some sort of maintenance/monitoring from the ground so it depends if that's possible, and if there's someone who has the time/ability to do it.

Edwin, forgive my ignorance but how do you navigate somewhere with directions to somewhere else? Did you do it by recognising where the destination is relative to other landmarks then reorient yourself, or something like that?

[tq168]

You will find that the US military (GPS) will turn off the civil version (CA) Just leavening the military version (PA) running. Not to sure what the Russians (Glonass) would do, as to the Chinese version (Compass) not much. They are still working on putting up the satellites, as with Europe's version (Galileo)

TQ

[edwin]

I wonder if one can call it a metphysical reason for being able to find one's way with the wrong map. First of all a map confirms that a place CAN be found which is really all one needs. With that assurance the getting to that place is a mere bagatelle. Of course logic and directions within a town help tremendously. But it is surprising how counter-intuitive the position of some destinations are. Pedestrianisation has complicated route finding through towns tremendously. This being so a map of location looked at as holy writ is all but useless.