"Schools Overhead" WUT?
Australia Travelog #35
Leura, NSW - Sat, 30 Dec 2023, 9am
The rental car we've been driving in Australia the past few days has a few frustrating characteristics. One of them is the whole stereo/navigation/Apple CarPlay system. After working for the first few minutes we were in the car on Wednesday it went on the fritz and wouldn't connect either of our iPhones for the next 45 minutes or so. Then the whole system became unresponsive... like even adjustments to the radio volume via knobs on the dashboard wouldn't work... until it rebooted itself. Thankfully that problem hasn't reappeared. But it took us until yesterday to get turn-by-turn directions from our phones working through the car's audio system.
As soon as we got spoken turn-by-turn directions playing through the car's stereo, another weird thing showed up.
"SCHOOLS OVERHEAD," a male voice boomed as we were driving through town.
What? we wondered. What kind of schools are overhead? Then it came again and again.
After the warning played several times we recognized that the synthetic voice wasn't actually saying "Schools overhead"; it was more like it was saying, "Schoolz Ohnahead". Ahh, "School zone ahead"... but with poor elocution.
Unfortunately we can't turn off Schoolzie McOneahead's annoying voice without disabling the audio for our own turn-by-turn directions. 🤦
Leura, NSW - Sat, 30 Dec 2023, 9am
The rental car we've been driving in Australia the past few days has a few frustrating characteristics. One of them is the whole stereo/navigation/Apple CarPlay system. After working for the first few minutes we were in the car on Wednesday it went on the fritz and wouldn't connect either of our iPhones for the next 45 minutes or so. Then the whole system became unresponsive... like even adjustments to the radio volume via knobs on the dashboard wouldn't work... until it rebooted itself. Thankfully that problem hasn't reappeared. But it took us until yesterday to get turn-by-turn directions from our phones working through the car's audio system.
As soon as we got spoken turn-by-turn directions playing through the car's stereo, another weird thing showed up.
"SCHOOLS OVERHEAD," a male voice boomed as we were driving through town.
What? we wondered. What kind of schools are overhead? Then it came again and again.
After the warning played several times we recognized that the synthetic voice wasn't actually saying "Schools overhead"; it was more like it was saying, "Schoolz Ohnahead". Ahh, "School zone ahead"... but with poor elocution.
Unfortunately we can't turn off Schoolzie McOneahead's annoying voice without disabling the audio for our own turn-by-turn directions. 🤦