Non trucker GPS suggestions?

The cheaper auto model will do simply that. Route you like a car. Upgrades, and many new features are being put into the truck navigation devices to insure you the driver have a professional tool.

The cheaper auto model may be great for long haul on freeways, but will it notify you of a 13'6" bridge when you have a 14' trailer? Yes, the 14's do make their way to this side of the big river. I ran a few, sweated it out in the NE.

Will the cheaper auto model let you search for truck stops when you are running low on fuel and are not familiar with that area. I have seen a few that run out in the main street in front of the truck stop. I would consider that lack of pre-planning.

If you drive as a company driver or leased to a company, does their safety department have a list of authorized Truck Navigation devices that are only allowed in "their" trucks?

The navigation device is as only as good as the person operating it. You own an MCRA, but does the owner of the MCRA actually know how to pick it up and look for restricted routes?

The navigation device, the MCRA, the shipper/consignee directions are only tools. You as the professional driver use all the tools at your hands and make the decsion.

I had one driver tell me the navigation device made him late 4 times. He did not use all his tools and relied on one tool totally. I would also say some pre-planning was missing also.

From the time you get your load off the QualComm or accross a load board, usually you have a very limited amount of time to plan your route and actually see if you can make that allotted appointment time. The truck navigation device no matter whom makes it, tries to keep you on Truck legal routes unlike a cheap car unit.

As a tool, the truck navigation device is a Tool to assist you and thus usually you are able to add it to your tax write-offs.

What you may by cheap today, you need to think long term. Why waste $200 to find out in a year you need to buy the truck navigation device and then spend another $350-$500? Money is tight all over. Make wise decsions based upon your needs for the long time period.

Thanks,
Mark

 

I use a Garmin Nuvi 205 made for cars. It gets the job done for my purposes. You just have to use common sense. It's a tool, nothing more. If you need an electronic gizmo to do your driving, then maybe you should pick a different career. Yes, they make them for trucks, but you'd have to be a fool to depend on them as well. What I depend on is still my Rand McNally Atlas and my cell phone, which I call customers. For customers in problem areas, I use Google Earth. You can usually see railroad tressels and bridges, then zoom into Streetview and actually read the sign to see how high they are.

 

why you budget $200?
wait for the black friday sale, TomTom has $59 GPS unit come out (it had last year, it must has a similar unit for sale), i use cheap device for my moving screen save use it does not help me for my job.

Black Friday Predictions for GPS- Nextar GPS Navigator for $39.99
- TomTom GPS for $49.99
- Magellan RoadMate GPS for $49.99
- Garmin Nuvi GPS for $79.99

http://www.theblackfriday.com/BlackFriday-Predictions.shtml

 

Go with a garmin. I used a nuvi 255 for a couple of years and it was excellent. I decided to upgrade to a 'truck gps' recently and in my opinion you are absolutley right, they are not quite there yet.

You can't beat a garmin for intuitive ease of use. If set to quickest route it will rarely put you on anything that is not a truck route except maybe when you get into a city. It's easy to check the big roads for restrictions and you always want to call a shipper/consignee for the in town stuff anyway.

 

I have been using a Magellan Maestro 4040 for the last 3 years. Refurbs are cheap and work well. It is very user friendly. You will still need common sense, a paper road atlas, cell phone, and cb radio. I pull doubles, and they don't back up so good, if you end up at the wrong dead end. They do charge for map updates.

 

I got a Garmin 1450T from Wal-Mart for $149.00 It works good for me.