Can’t afford the GPS...

A laptop and internet is needed for best usage of Google maps and it does not show info for truckers, it is car traffic they planned on people using it for.. Anything you pull up needs to be scrutinized real well before you go down it. Try to stay off white roads, esp trying to save miles, grey roads aren't much better but sometimes have to be used to make it to a delivery area. Zoom in and check the road esp if you see a body of water, or railroad tracks. Towns can throw up a restriction overnight.

Husband has a Rand McNally he uses. We used a car Garmin many moons ago, but stuck to the bigger roads and then customer/company directions.

I finally made it to the 21st century and have used my phone a few times here and on a roadtrip and it did pretty good, but I had an idea as to where I was going 1st.

Google maps on a laptop is a very useful tool. You can zoom in and find where the driveway is, if it is even on the same road you are addressed to or not. If you have a Rand McNally in the future, you can find a GPS address if the address won't compute and pullup. You can star truckstops you use regularly, rest areas, etc. My map has stars all over it now.

Goodluck and be careful out there.

 

Neat, but slow doing a whole route it looks like.

 

Try truckrouter.com

 

Generally you're only going to be concerned about the route between the interstate and the shipper / receiver.

 

Best answer.

 

You can try truckmiles.com

 

With Google maps and looking in cities prone to low bridges, learn how to recognize RR tracks, then note where RR tracks intersect with your proposed route, using satellite view, note if the road crosses over or under the tracks, if under, then click a few hundred feet from the bridge and switch to street view and move toward the bridge and note any bridge height signs and any other potential gotcha's.

Does your company not provide "customer directions" along with load info?

Lots of larger places that receive trucks all day long have a phone menu option that will provide truck directions. Record these if you can for replay.

 

Honestly if you can't afford a gps for trucks in a truck stop. Look on your local craigslist website and you should find some reasonable rand mcnally for trucks. There are a lot of drivers that are retiring and posting stuff on craigslist. Hope this works for you.

 

I think the bigger problem is why cant you afford a gps. Unless you just started driving lost week, this is an issue.

 

Poor mans GPS?

Google Maps for Android....beware!