Which IS The Best GPS

Very wise words there...all we really have is time (and time is money)

 

try the new navigon with free traffic updates and lane assistance. It won't due restricted routes so you'll need to check the map too.

 

Its a helpful tool. That being said, if you don't do your homework... check that map, know the route in and the route out and have a good idea of anything that could get you in trouble before you head in, you're asking for trouble. No matter how "good" these things are, if you screw up because the GPS told you to do X, it's on you.

"Waaahhh! My GPS told me to take my 13'-4" trailer under the 12' overpass, Waaahhh!"

That don't cut it Bubba!

 

Im still favoring the teletype 7100.. Looks like a good unit. No Gps is going to be 100%. But this unit looks pretty good.

kkburr73

 

In other words, they are exploiting a loophole in truth in advertising laws in order to rip off truck drivers.

Just use Streets & Trips and you can set your road preferences so that 95 percent of the time it will route you via truck routes. Then get the Truck Stops Plus add-on template for Streets & Trips, which not only enables you to check for restricted routes and low clearances much faster and easier than a MCRA on your laptop screen, but also provides all the truck stops, walmart supercenters, rest areas, turnpike service plazas, parking areas, weigh stations, blue beacons, etc. to Streets & Trips.

I would never plan a route and then drive it without going over it with a finetooth comb and making sure that it doesn't have any restricted routes and low clearances first. Those people that blindly rely on their GPS units with out checking their routes beforehand are playing Russian Roulette with their careers.

 

I use Streets & Trips because it is similar to using a MCRA. Only it is much better because it has street level mapping for every town and village in the USA and Canada. Thus, you can find out if your directions to a particular shipper or consignee are wrong before you actually drive it and have time to find out the correct directions before hand.

Plus you can make the maps as big or as little as you need it to be. Thus enabling you to get a much better perspective of the areas you are driving to than you could get with a MCRA alone.

Further, it uses the same Navteq maps that Google Maps and Mapquest use, except you don’t need an Internet connection to use it. In addition, you can make the maps as big or as little as you need it to be and scroll the map much faster than with Google Maps and Mapquest, and if you have an internet connections, you can click the Windows Live Local button and get a Birdseye view of your shippers and consignees via bing.com.

A lot of people will use Streets & Trips just for routing and trip planning. However, I use it for navigation as well, and I can tell you the first time you have to make a delivery on a new moon night when the fog is so thick you can’t even see the street signs much less read them, you will appreciate voice and visual guided turn-by-turn directions.

Streets & Trips is by far the cheapest solution on the market today, and as for as I am concerned once you learn how to use it overall it is the best.

Yeah you always have to be prepared for all kinds of contingencies, which is why I always have two or three instances of Streets & Trips running in the background minimized besides the instance I’m using for navigation. That way if I run into a detour or a traffic backup, I can quickly maximize one of the instances of Streets & Trips running in the background and route myself around it. Or if I need to check the mileage from point A to point B, I can maximizes one of the minimized instances of Streets & Trips running in the background and do it. Or if I need to look at a preplan and decide whether or not to accept it, I can do the same thing. Thus, it gives you much more flexibility than using a standalone GPS unit that is designed to do one single job, and you just can’t beat the panoramic view only a laptop gives you.

 

Only a fool would drive a route created by a GPS device without first checking out every inch of the route before hand. Nevertheless, you can read on the Internet everyday about drivers complaining about their GPS device leading them to a restricted route or a low clearance. GPS devices are wonderful tools, but if you don’t have the common sense to check your routes and check them for restricted routes and low clearances before hand, then you deserve anything bad that happens to you.

Had that fool checked out his route before hand, he would have found out his directions were wrong and could have corrected them long before he ever started driving. In other words, GPS devices are wonderful tools but if you are an idiot, it doesn’t matter how wonderful they are.

 

The technology guy on our company's staff has been doing some GPS work. They evaluated a QualComm product, and both sides decided it isn't ready yet... next breath, he commented that none of the stand-alone offerings was adequate to be used alone.

In fact his view was you have to use the Commercial Carriers' Atlas as the primary source. Too many of these devices have problems programmed in, and most do not allow for any sort of update. The further out you are from the copyright date on the software, the less accurate they are just simply because things change.

 

I use the Truck Stops Plus 2009 add-on template with Streets & Trips instead of the MCRA, because it lets me confirm my routes are restricted route and low clearance free right from the convenience of my laptop screen, and it is much faster as well.

I also use it to search and route to truck stops, rest areas, super walmarts, etc. because it is much faster and easier than using a truck stop directory, MCRA, and then having to write down your route. You can also see where all the weigh stations are. Plus I hate using anything that makes me have to use my reading glasses.

At best the best digital maps are always at least 2 to 3 years behind if not more, plus they will always contain numerous map data errors. Thus, there will never be a GPS solution that will do truck specific routing consistently enough to rely on. Hence, you can spend your hard earn money for GPS devices that advertise they will do truck routing, but realize before hand that it will not be consistent enough to rely on and thus it will defeat the purpose for spending all of that money.

 

On a side note. Anyone remember the episode of 'The Office' where Michael drives his car into the lake because "technology told him to do it" All of this reminds me of that. As a hopeful newbie, I'll take into consideration that no GPS will be the only map I'll need. I'll use all of my resources at hand, plus, there's a lot to be said about reading and using an old fashioned map