trip planning

Rookies get caught up in this a lot. But for $15 bucks a seasoned driver after saving up their first 32 paychecks could afford to buy the 2011 National Truck Stop Directory featuring the 53 United States and Canadian States. A savvy driver can drive down the road while perusing the pages of this Trucker's Friend and punching in phone numbers of the next truck stop to call ahead to see what is in the offing for the buffet today. Of course if you want to be legal the driver would use a Star Trek Communicator on their chest to make the call while holding the directory and driving at the same time....In this way the enterprising driver can log more hours on the road-- There are 24 hours on the log, so you never run out of hours.

 

Are you saying your first 32 paychecks averaged $0.48?

 

The best trip planning involves...staying out of the truck stops. Keeping the left door closed. Putting in the driving time.
Now remember this...just because your truck will do 70...you will average around 50 mph. This is assuming you are on a 500 to 800 mile trip east of the Mississippi. Of course if you are out west and you are going cross country you will do better.
Set a goal for today...500 miles, 600 miles, whatever. Look at your map and see where you will be after 500 miles...plan accordingly.
Trip planning becomes second nature to those of us with an interest in geography. Oh! You didn't know there was geography involved? Learn what state is next to what state. Learn how many miles are from point A to point B. For instance... what is the distance between the New mexico border and the Arizona border when traveling I-40?
Trip planning is big fun for truckers! Almost as much fun as weather!

 

The Original Poster hit the nail on the head about trip planning and its importance to OTR drivers.

Trip planning is the foundation of OTR driving long haul or short haul. If you cant trip plan you will have a miserable experience and probably will fail at OTR. Good trip planning is what allows you to see and do things. Enjoy the ride. Make the most of the little time DOT gives you to earn a living and it always gives you a cushion or redundancy, backup plan. Having multiple redundancy's incorporated into your trip plan is what ensures you always comfortably get to your destination on time or are able to logically explain to you dispatch before you even accept or begin a trip that you have an issue or issues with it, be it weather, HOS, gridlock in downtown city you are traveling threw, dispatch overlooking or making a mistake on your HOS/recap hours coming up ets. This is what keeps your job. Makes it to where you dont have to push so hard in middle of a city. You can only push so many little cars and pickups out of your way with your rig because you are running late, before one pushes back and you are in an accident your job is gone.

Good trip planning and running hard and long hours is what allows you to take half a day or a ten hour break say in Vegas or other places during a hard run. Its whats makes a trucker money. It keeps the DOT MFers off your ace, because you are running more legal, and not sweating like a stuck pig at the chicken coop. As I said before its the foundation of OTR.

 

where is this no name truck stop exactly, the company that i drive for has a warehouse a couple of blocks east of the loves

made a trip there back before christmas and stayed at that loves,it definitly gets full

 

I-24, x89. (TN)
Love's on one side
Danny's Food Mart on the other side.

 

Trip planning! One of the drivers at our main terminal was lamenting to me the other day about how they don't give us enough time to make our delivery window.

..really?

I haven't missed a delivery window yet. If anything, I've been early before the window even opened. This next trip I have to deliver tomorrow....any time. I think I'll be able to make that. Unless of course the weather won't allow it.

But it got me to thinking: why isn't he able to make these delivery windows? Is he staying up too late? Is he spending too much time at the truck stops during his driving shift? Is he sleeping too much or taking too many naps?

 

Not spending the time to trip plan, not logging right, not willing to rotate, shifts on the fly, not running hard enough. Over sleeping, over eating, stopping to many times, running slower that he should, driving 25 mph in the fog instead of 60 MPH like everyone else, panzing out every time he or she sees little snow or water on the road. If he trip planned it out as soon as he got the load, he would know mile for mile, hour by hour how his trip would unfold up to the exact time he delivers. Any problems he sees he could immediately discuss with his dispatch before even doing his VI on the trip he was about to start.

 

Police radar does not work in fog so you can drive as fast as you want without worry. Not to mention the qualcomm cannot communicate with the satellite in fog either. The best time is about 2 AM in soup thick fog for running triple digit speeds just keep your truck right in the middle of the road, one seot of tires on one side of the line, the other set of tires on the other side-- straddling if you will.

 

Somebody's got a fever and is suffering from delirium