Several years ago I purchased one of the first GPS devices — the Garmin eMap. It didn’t talk to you, it lost its signal often, and it showed your route in black and white. Since then I have owned a number of hand-held GPS units. With the advent of the iPhone came a number of GPS apps. Most were not as effective as the old hand-held devices. But now, for just $.99 a month, the MotionX Drive GPS is my unit of choice.

The MotionX GPS runs well on my iPhone. It has many fine features that my old hand-held GPS units did not have. Here are some of my favorites:

Built-in “Around Me” information lets me search for and locate favorite places — and the GPS can then route me to them.

The computer voice tells me how far it is to each turn.

When arriving at a destination, the voice tells me on which side of the street my destination lies.

A simple push of a “button” repeats the previous voice command, and adds information about the next turn.

A compass to view heading and coordinates — good for walking in places where there are no regular streets.

A Wikipedia connection to explore locations of interest.

Directional arrows that show the direction of the location you searched for, relative to the direction you are facing.

Traffic maps and the ability to be re-routed automatically around “obstacles”en route. A “Park Spot” button to save the location of your last parking spot to a Parking Spots list.

I know that the time soon will come, when a new GPS device takes the place of my iPhone’s MotionX GPS. But, until that time comes I expect to have lots of fun exploring locations with my new toy.

But more than a new GPS toy, I would really like to see much improved safety systems in cars. Is the government afraid of ordering car companies to install devices to prevent inebriated rivers to start their cars? With modern technology, a device that detects alcohol levels could be installed and legislated in each car — much as safety belts are today. Let’s save more lives.

Mr. Ebsen may be contacted at Robertebsen@hotmail.com