Mandatory Or Optional Items To have Inside The Truck As An Over The Road Driver

I think it is better to have a CB than not, but I found it to be mostly situational. There was hardly any chatting in my experience, and I was never interested in hearing the banter between two drivers. It just sounds like listening in on a boring phone call to me. However there have been several situations where I wish I had one when I didn't for information purposes.

 

There's two situations where I turn my cb on and am glad I have it. 1) shippers who want to use cb rather than cellphone to give door assignments/let me know I'm done. 2) hazardous WX. When the weather is good enough to drive, but not actually good you can get a heads up. I've been warned of icy roads ahead, and have warned drivers of trucks jackknifed across roadways, deteriorating road conditions, et. cetera. Should we all be able to navigate without one? Sure, but a heads up to wx related problems ahead puts you on your guard and means you don't get surprised by it.
Bears/scales I could care less. I keep everything on the up and up. Traffic jams I turn the cb on long enough to find out which lane is open and shut it off before I get stupified by the overall lack of intelligence coming through the speaker.

 

Cut him down all you want. Even if you do NOTHING but listen to the CB, it has it's purpose. There are times on I24 and other places you are cruisin' along and suddenly in a dead fog. I90, you can't see places over 1/3 mile in front of you because of twists and winding roads in the mountains and some fool going the opposite direction is trying to share with you that a herd of elk is standing in your lane. Forget the fact that one truck is already stopped in the middle of your lane because he just laid one out destroying his truck. I 70 across CO, another fool is telling you there are cattle on the road around Grand Junction.

Yop, the CB is a totally useless piece of equipment for the truck.

At times, my favorite channel is the O-F-F channel.

 

Everything you can find in a home is in my truck. Thinking about adding a treadmill next.

 

I just run along side the truck when I am running down the interstate.

 

I rarely break out the laptop but there are some things you just need the laptop for.

 

Looking back over my years on the road, I can think of times which would justify my carting around everything from a rabid beaver to a 20-mm minigun but, somehow, I've managed to restrain myself.

On the other hand, I'm a firm believer that if a driver believes that he needs a certain piece of equipment, he should have it. Personally, I will NOT leave the yard without my woodburning microwave. (I'm thinking about a GPS unit, whatever that is, now that I know it replaces vision).

 

If you care to be a luddite, go for it.

The GPS (IF you have the RM TND version) is doing nothing more than holding the RM road atlas open for you for all practical purpose.

 

Frankly, there's nothing much to "go for' in becoming a Luddite; you just sit there and Ludditedom kinda seeps all over you. It's similar to being covered in barbecue sauce.

As to the GPS, as I mentioned in a different thread, I've considered getting one. I prefer to plan my trips using my laptop mapping program and make notes in a steno pad with a Sharpie for the "hard parts". Doing so allows me to maximize my legal miles for the day, plan fuel and overnight stops, etc., etc. - you know, the trucking driver stuff.

However, my eyes aren't what they used to be so the GPS may save me some effort in finding my way from the exit to the shipper/receiver rather than having to read my notes. It hasn't been a problem yet but if a GPS can make the job a bit easier, why not use it? I wonder if I can get one programmed with Sophia Loren's voice to provide directions?

As for "holding the RM road atlas open for" me, I can probably live without that. Unlike Hank Snow and Johnny Cash, I haven't been everywhere but I have been enough places that I can usually find my way coast to coast and border to border without having to continually follow an atlas.

Thanks for the advice. I've gotta go gather some wood for my microwave.

 

I don't know about other people's GPS, but mine sometimes puts the ts on the wrong side of the interstate. If I did what it said I'd've ended up in some hairy situations. I don't trust it to tell me where I'm going or how to get there, but once I program in my destination and waypoints so it takes me right route it makes a nice running notes sheet and calculates my miles and time to destination. Using for anything more is asking for trouble.