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Never Lost
Cheap Charlie · December 11, 2000

Christmas came early to me this weekend. I rented a car through Hertz in Los Angeles and it came with their Hertz NeverLost System. I had so much fun with this device that it became one of the highlights of the weekend.

It really works. It is amazing. Magic.

Now I don't want you to feel that I just arrived from the farm, but NeverLost did make me feel like the isolated tribesman in The Gods Must Be Crazy when he came upon the Coke bottle that fell from the sky.

Ironically, I had just had dinner with a software company chief executive who described his experience with the Hertz NeverLost system. He described the ability of the system to get him to appointments. He had reached the point where he had abandoned his maps. I was a bit incredulous.

Truthfully, I felt he was more fascinated with the melodious voice of the Direction-giver than the directions themselves.

I had no idea that my rental car life would change within 24 hours. But when I opened the door of my Mazda 626 in the Hertz lot at LAX and saw the NeverLost system, my eyes lit up. I immediately took the time to read the instructions and go through the "quick guide" tutorial on the machine.

It was a bit complicated, but with a bit of practice and a few mistakes I loaded my destination into the system based on the street address. I then turned out of the Hertz lot. The rest is history.

I tested every method of direction that the system offered. I input addresses. I selected hotels from the computerized list. I came up with street intersections to reach.

NeverLost lived up to its name. I was never lost.

Next I selected differing route methods. NeverLost offers the shortest distance, the shortest time, the most use of freeways and the least use of freeways. All selections produced different sets of directions. But every set of directions was accurate.

I then decided to trick the computer and GPS system by taking a different route I knew would get us to the destination. NeverLost never skipped a beat. It would announce that it was recalculating the directions based on my new turns and lead me right to the spot.

The only negative factor I experienced was that the system's volume is not loud enough to be heard when the windows are open cruising down the freeways. Other than that small difficulty, the system worked wonderfully.

This is an excellent added benefit offered by Hertz and I believe a similar direction system is available to Avis and National drivers. If you are heading into a region where you are not familiar with the roads, NeverLost can be a blessing.

(How did Cheap Charlie end up with Hertz? I have discovered that though Hertz has the perception of being one of the most expensive rental car companies, they are actually very competitive and in some cases when you are looking for one-way rentals or have additional drivers, can be the least expensive. On this weekend I was using a frequent flier award certificate for additional discounts as well. In the rental car business, you never know which company will offer the lowest rate. On one call it may be Thrifty. On another, it may be Hertz. Someday it is Dollar and on others it is Alamo. The real bottom line is that when making rental car reservations, check with at least three companies.)

Charlie Leocha is the Boston-based author of Travel Rights: Know the Rules of the Road and the Air Before You Go. Cheap Charlie appears every Monday on this site. E-mail him at leocha@aol.com or access his Web site.