Trip Planning for Newbies

If you have streets and trips, plan it on there. It's actually what I do all of my trip planning on, of course with my trusty road atlas and fuel finder book that you can pick up at pretty much any truck stop (I use the small one, but I've seen others use the big full truck stop directory or whatever).

If your streets and trips is the one that has the gps tracker, then it will estimate your time left to arrive. While it's not always correct in it's estimate, it's normally pretty close. When using the Route Planner, after you enter the start/final and any stops you need along the way, go down to the bottom and there will be a button that says "More Options". When you click it, you can choose your depart time by selecting your drive times (I set mine to just drive continuously). After you do that, you can see in the Directions section the estimated time that you will arrive at different points of your trip. Then you can pull out the Fuel Finder or Truck Stop Directory and see what is close to that area. Once you see what's close, just add the address to the planner as a stop, and you're good to go. I love this program, seriously, lol.

Also, I have Co-Pilot Truck, and my advice is save your money. So far I've been much more impressed with Streets and Trips and the GPS Locator. You might consider purchasing one of the new smaller gps units instead of another program for the PC, there are a few out there for truck routing.

Nothing replaces your atlas for knowing restricted routes, bridge heights, weight and length limits, etc. Co-Pilot is supposed to know some of this, but I say nay nay! The bastage put me on a couple of restricted routes when I first got it, and I realized quickly that I was not going to be able to trust it.

With Streets and Trips you can make your own truck route restrictions anyways, just right click and drag to make a box over a section of road that you can't pass through, then right click in the box and select "Avoid Area". It will route you around from that point forward (as long as you are using the same map, I always use the same map for everything). It also will let you add pins to the map, and icons, so if you want to add one for your favorite truck stops, or whatever, it's pretty simple. There are files on the site here that you can import as well that will show them on your software (although I had to dump the data and add the ones I wanted manually because of all the junk it kicked in with it on the TA locations).

 

This is where we are all different. I always park at the customer before unloading, if they are closed I expect them to wake me up, Truck stops I use for showers the get the heck out of them.

My log book may sit 10 hours but my truck seldom does.

 

I know a lot of customers that say they are not a wake up service and have waved me ahead of sleeping drivers . I won't wake a driver either because I have no idea how long he has been there or what his appointment time is .

 

Having the truck stop book will be a lot of help. You can estimate how many miles you
will drive for the day and then find you a truck stop close to that area. You may want to get like three truck stops and write them down and try them one by one. sometimes if you are pulling in late the truck stop will be filled up.

We use google maps and find places, hey if you have a wife have her help you. My husband depends on me a lot to help him find truck stops. I often get out on google maps and just go down the road looking for big wide areas where he can park. i tell him to look for them and lots of time it works out that they are still there.

Sleeping at a customer can be a good thing if they don't have a gate and won't allow you on the property early. Also at times you will get woke up before you wanted. so you have to play that one by ear.

jacks

 

I haven't forgotten, but I bet that brainwashing 101 is still embedded....

 

Oh no you said that your log book sits 10 hours but you seldom do So I just have to do my speach so the new drivers knows what "CAN" happen to them when they do such things

If you do this and you have an accident within the next 30 days of doing such a thing and it goes to court for someone dying (or hurt) and they see you ran illegal 30 days prior or close to the date of the accident you could be held for Vehicular Manslaughter.
If your truck has qualcom it's usually easy to figure out your 30 day history and usually they go back 6 months worth of logs. So be carefull doing this.

What I find is normally drivers will shut down for 8 hours no problem so what you need to do if this is your case is learn to split break so you can log it legal and be happy

Ok done preaching

 

I had two recent trips to PHX. I had plenty of time to get to the customer, but if I went to the nearest truck stop I would have been late for the deliveries by the time my mandatory break was up. What do you do in this situation? I sat in front of the customer and pulled in during my break. Is this illegal?

 

Yes , it is . My carrier would know from the Qualcomm the truck was started before the break was up and suspend or fire the driver for falsifying logs . They've done it . I've seen copies of logs on our bulletin board corporate sent to 100 terminals showing drivers logged sleeper time while they were unloading . If you were already on the property you could unload and then have to restart your break . If a shipper can't release a load to me in time for me to take my break before unloading I tell them it's going to be late . I've never had any problems because of that . I'm not going to spend 19 hours at a customer instead of 2 (arrive at midnight , sleeper 'til 7 , unload 7 to 9 , take 10 hour break 'til 7 ) . No I can't split the hours . Every driver that has turned in a split sleeper had it written as a violation no matter how they do it so I always take the ten . My carrier accepts that attitude . After all , the more hours I'm down the more hours their truck is down . They don't want me turning a 2 day trip into a 3 day trip because the shipper takes too long to get a trailer loaded .

 

i been doing this all wrong I though trip plannin was driving till your tired Then parking and figuring your trip on the logbook to show how you got there

All in all great post in this tread each person does this differnt time will teach you the best way for yourself to learn it and where and where not to sleep.
I personally never sleep on a on are off ramp and not unless really tired in a RR
Truckstops are only needed for fuel and food togo if you park you may wake up to someone holding your mirror in there hand.
Most the time Hour are so before I get ready to stop I get the wife to look up a WM
And sleep there