GPS gets Driver Locked Up !!!

Just like you can't use a car to haul 45 thousand pounds of hamburgers!

Mikeeee

 

The problem with Rand Mcnally (especially as it pertains to Pennsylvania) is that they used to highlight only those routes that are approved under STAA dimensions (53' x 102" trailer) and now they highlight roads that are approved for trucks of smaller dimensions, even though they may not be approved for the longer and wider trailers. So the next time you're in Pennsylvania stop in a rest area and grab a free "Truckers Guide to Pennsylvania". Its a handy map that shows all the width and length restrictions as well as low clearances and weight limited bridges and steep grades. All the roads are color coded according to size restrictions and letter coded where direction of travel according to size is restricted (i.e. PA 115 north from Bear Creek to I 81 in Luzerne County). However, it only covers the one, two and three digit primary state highways and does not include the four digit secondary roads that are under the purview of PennDOT that are sometimes posted for size and weight. Everyone who goes through PA should have one of these. It's free and very helpful! But like anything else it should be used with caution.

 

Don't you think any GPS owner with any intelligence knows that? You can change routes on a GPS and tell it which way you want to go by known truck routes. How do you do that? You compare it with your Rand McNally and you call the customer. Then you put all three together.

If a person is dumb enough to use a GPS incorrectly, they are dumb enough on their map reading too. You have to read and use both of them.

Anyone that hits a bridge or turns down a road with a big sign saying no trucks, it's not the GPS malfunctioning.

 

Of course you can. If it is a RAIL car. . .

 

But they don't have a gps version for trains!!!!

Mikeeee

 

If you roll over a bridge with a ten ton weight limit, in a truck that weighs 40 tons, you will damage the bridge.

And, the next car along might crash into the river and the driver could get killed.

There are reasons for these laws.
Just because you turn on the GPS is no reason to turn off your brain.

I have no pity for this dumb ### and his "poor pitiful me" routine.

 

Also for just as long there have been plenty of drivers who have managed NOT to hit low clearances and run across weight-restricted bridges. This guy was driving a chemical tanker, and as far as I'm concerned, hazmat drivers should be professionals, the best of the best. This was a rookie mistake. Even if he had been following a trucker's GPS, he shouldn't have trusted it completely, not off-interstate with a hazmat load. He should have had other tools at his disposal to better inform his trip planning. Now, I have learned the hard way that my Rand McNally Motor Carriers' Atlas sometimes highlights roads with weight restrictions as truck routes, so I tend to avoid taking chances if I'm heavy. I don't pull hazmat, but if I did I'd be even more cautious. I always call for directions and check those directions against both my map and my GPS before blindly heading down an unfamiliar road. I even pull up Google Earth to look at the satellite images from time to time if I don't completely trust the information I have.

I don't actually think the fines are ridiculously high, either. A fully loaded truck does as much damage to a highway--a highway designed and built to support heavy trucks, mind you--as do almost 10,000 passenger cars. Road work takes lots of time and is extremely expensive. I'd bet that the cost of a single small road crew for one day's work could easily exceed $12,000 in total, and a damaged bridge isn't going to be repaired in one day.

 

My sentiments exactly. Off with their heads!! Starting with Ray lahhod.

 

Hear, hear!!

 

Yeah let the guy go.
Let's not have any more laws for driving the roads!


We have some anarchist morons on this forum.