By David W. Ransin

My Garmin Street GPS is one of the most valuable and nifty gadgets that I have in my practice. In my opinion the best option is the portable model; the built-ins in the new cars are pretty, but those blankety blank lawyers keep you from running most of them while driving. If you want to change your route, you have to pull over and stop – a major hassle if you have time limits. I figured out some time ago that I can be more productive by hiring a driver while I work instead of doing windshield time (a wise move I learned from really great and smart attorneys). With a portable model, I can be in the back seat, the driver hands it to me, and I can check out different routes. I can take it with me to the office or home and plan trips rather than sitting in the driveway. It’s much easier to hook up to your computer and upgrade (more below on this). Also, instead of pulling out various state, city or county maps to look something up, get one with the biggest screen so you can use it instead of a paper map. When you find what you’re looking for, save it as a POI (point of interest) so you can pull it back up any time you want it.

Here are a couple of real life events in my practice using my portable Garmin navigator. While on a deposition to Indianapolis, I get in a cab with a driver substantially lacking English communication skills. I’m short on time, so I give the cab driver the address, and he seems to not instill the best confidence in me that he knows where the heck I need to go. With my Garmin in hand from the back seat, I’m able to convince him he’s going the wrong way. Within minutes we are there, but there’s so much street construction that he has to drop me off three blocks away. Me and my Garmin (no singing) finish the trip with coaching to go left, right, right, left, leading me directly to the correct building and all’s just dandy.

On another trip for a deposition, my Garmin again saved the day. I had a long drive to Whotheheckknowsfarnorthwestern, Kansas. It took five hours to get there, eight hours for the deposition, and a long late night five-hour drive home. I got some sleep in the back seat as my driver follows the Garmin, so there is little chance of wrong turns at midnight. At 2 a.m., I wake up in my driveway . . . nice.

On yet another deposition road trip with my driver, my court reporter and another attorney, we had been aboard since 9 a.m. with the deposition scheduled to start at 1 p.m. and likely to run to 5 p.m., and my Garmin says we are on time. At about 11:30 a.m., we decided we needed to find a bite to eat. While in the back seat using the Garmin, I explore what options are directly on our route. I could zoom to each one and make sure it’s not much of a detour, and easy to get on and off the highway, plus the eatery choices are sorted by type of food. A discussion ensues and the group decided. I told the Garmin where we wanted to stop; it kept our final destination programmed. I handed it back to the driver and he gets us there while the rest of us work. We eat, and easily arrive on time, smooth as it can be.

One of the least expected but most anxiety-saving features is the estimated time of arrival. Most lawyers, including yours truly, are always short on time. On a long trip, if you make too many convenience store stops or get caught in traffic, there’s always that lingering “Am I still on time?” fear. With the ETA always displayed, it lets you know the time when you’ll arrive. When you have to be there by 11 a.m. and your Garmin shows you arriving at 10:41a.m, you know you can go ahead and stop, relax, and get back on the road. It now adjusts your ETA at 10:53 a.m., so you know for certain in seconds that you will be on time with no worry at all. What’s left of life is too short to worry.

My Garmin is on all the time, even when driving to court or around town. If I get a call, I can look down and tell them I’m seven minutes away. If I have some stops on the way home, I know when I’ll be home, honey. I also drive much slower now with much less passing and weaving, as it has conditioned me that all that anxiety driving only really saved me seconds or a minute at most. Could this be biofeedback for driving?

Upgrading is easy with not only new maps, but there are free and pay websites where you can download all kinds of points of interest or favorite locations, specialty restaurants, museums, etc. to explore and create your own with custom markers.

With a portable Garmin, you and your friends can take a trip, but if the other guy wants to drive, take your portable Garmin with the suction cup mount and power charger. I can program a trip and give it to my wife or daughter and off they go in their own car, which you can’t do with a built-in unit.

Do you have a sense of humor? For a fee, you can download different voices, such as valley girl, jive bro’, or a British comic that will give you hell for a wrong turn.

The Garmin can also give you some fun options. While driving down the road, it displays names of streets coming up as well as a few blocks to each side that I don’t usually notice. By zooming it out a bit and taking a detour drive through the country, I can safely say “Gee, I never knew there was a lake over that hill to the right. Let’s go explore it, and I know I won’t get lost.” We all have our routine routes for familiar trips, but with the GPS, I’ll often “take the road less traveled” just for the sheer variety. All the while the ETA monitors my arrival time so I can play around along the way, have fun, arrive on time, and not “get in trouble,” as the unit adjusts my route and ETA as I intentionally go “off route.”

As far as I’m concerned, steal my truck, but don’t steal my Garmin!