Mapping your route. What do you use?

Rand Mcnally truckers atlas........ GPS is only to remind me that my turn is coming up

 

I was going to say this very thing. GPS is nice, but I have lost signal at crucial times, I take the route solution on the qualcomm and compare it to good ol Rand McNally

 

I prefer to use them both. I have found that the trick for me is not to re-lie on the gps without consulting the truckers atlas first! I use a Garmin ( it is not a truckers edition ) and is great but it will get you in trouble if you do not use some common sense with it. You have to pay attention to where you are going and what the signs around you are telling you so that you don't find yourself in a bad situation. I love it at night when trying to find somewhere I have never been before because it shows the streets as I am coming up on them. The atlas is use is the Rand McNally truckers edition. Any way I am sure there is some one out there with a different opinion but that is what seems to work best for me. Good luck to you!

 

Google Maps with the trucker atlas is always good. If you are worried about a certain route you can always ask another driver at the truckstop if they ever been on that highway. I have found some good short cuts that way.

 

Speaking of asking, has anyone ever driven down Crows Canyon Road near Hayward, CA? My route solution takes me through that...I was curious, it looks narrow on Google Maps.

 

That is the way to use them. I have a TND 710 I use when I take a bus load of athletes out of town for an event. I use it to show me the streets around my destination. It is fairly accurate but it is limited to what I call data bases, "stupid in, stupid out".

Case in point: I have the address of the home high school stored in the 710. I don't need the directions but I like the virtual dash board and the ETA it gives me so when I get asked when will be get back I have an immediate answer.

When I pull off the Interstate and head for the school, it always tries to route me south of the school and then back north on a residential street. I go the way I always go and the stupid thing recalculates and tries to run me into a sub division to turn around. All this while in truck mode. Finally it figures out when I am and then tells me to turn into the school lot.

 

I use a combination of the routing my company sends me on the Qualcomm, the Rand Mcnally CMV atlas, Mapquest, and Google Maps. For a long time I didn't trip plan. I had a "hey, I got this!" attitude. This is a stupid attitude to have, and as I have gotten more experienced I have returned to trip planning big time. The best tool is Google Maps for really scoping out where you are going to be driving, whether your exits are going to be left or right exits, whether it is wise to make your turns in certain intersections, which streets are more truck friendly than others, finding landmarks near your destination, etc. Yes I know GPS can help you out with some of these things, but I find that doing my homework and actually making notes in a notebook with a pen before I roll, helps me remember, and I have a very clear idea of what I am doing. If you only take away two words from what I just wrote, let it be: Google Maps.

 

Rand McNally Road atlas primarily....

backed up with a RM TMD510 GPS.


Between the two, they get me where I want to go. The GPS did me right today where I had to go knowing enough to NOT take me through the capitol area in the metro in St Paul.

 

Ditto. I use all of the tools I have available.