Using Motor Carrier atlas

" have ended up with a lot of city fold out maps. I assume the dispatcher gave the directions."

Yeah, I ended up with a lot of City maps. When I started in 2000, my carrier didn't have a Qualcomm. Had to 'call in ' every day. Was a pain.... I had no cell phone, either. So a lot of looking for the phone booths. I was poor too, and had no CB, either! It took a couple months to get the CB and I was in hog-heaven when I got that. It's pretty easy to do it all from a Rand McNally map now. The Qualcomm will get very, very specific too, so that is a freebie. There isn't much need to get lost, IF you write out your route before you get there.
Road closures tho, and construction, can screw you up. Just find a safe place to pull over and re-figure when you have to. Hey, I've got stories of cruisin' in neighborhoods, trust it. lol
One can get a City map about 50 miles out from any large town and get it figured out where to go, if you don't have laptop etc. Call the rec/shipper first tho, and they can usually get you really close. If you can't figure it out, then get the maps. Or GPS units I suppose are handy too. IF it has a mute. haha.
Laptop is the way to go, imo. I have Streets and Trips 2010 now. But with a laptop and internet connection, you can 'google 'maps' and then 'Directions' and you can add your route, and it will make Route for you.

Just write it down, is how I do it. Can also zoom in and see shipper/receiver on Street View. Unreal...

I remember that time I first went to NYC. Had to call up the Receiver for directions and I get some guy with a heavy Puerto Rican accent giving me directions to the BFI facility in the Bronx. Well, I didn't get exactly what he was saying and I got close....sorta,,,then missed my turn or something and I go across to Manhatten by mistake. Cruisin' down Lennox Ave. in a big ole' 53' lol. I can't believe it... I get back over into the Bronx, and there is a bridge with a '12'7 or so.... It looks higher, tho I end up backing up. Everyone is waving me on!! Like it is no big deal. I sit for a minute w/flashers on by park w/some guys playing ball and a dude comes over and tells me 'nyc bridge heights are from the Axle hub to the top,,,not from the ground to the top". Weird. So I squeezed under it w/6" to spare. The dude rides w/me since he said he worked as a lumper, so I said 'ok'. And we got there and I gave him some bucks for his effort. We both were glad...lol. but I refuse to go back into the city after that. I'll go over the GW and too L.I. or on to another state, tho I'm not going to del in nyc again if I can help it. I wasn't supposed to be in Manhatten, in a big truck that long.

Technology has come a long way in 10 years.

 

I use an MCRA, GPS and Netbook for finding routes. Any tools that save time is a good tool .

I also have this database I keep for shipper/receivers.

Link to download here:
http://www.driversdailylog.com/DDL340_DDL_CUSTOMERS.EXE

It is from the people that make DDL. It is a stand alone app. and it's free.

 

wow a database would be awesome to have. i downloaded it. ill have to give it a try when im out on the road. i was thinking about starting my own database of shippers/consignee's complete with local directions and addresses. we write them down but always throw away the pages when we r done with the load.

 

I used city maps mostly. Practically all gas stations had them except for maybe the really small ones. Sometimes dispatchers had directions and also got directions from other drivers. I carried a composition book and wrote down every place I went to in case I ever went back and couldn't remember. Sometimes I would call the shipper/receiver but that was a PITA sometimes trying to find a payphone and making sure you had a dime for the call lol.

 

directions from a dispatcher?---hahaha that is pretty good----never had that happen
i used to get the local maps in the spiral book form if at all posible---i hate those 3 ft maps

 

CB radio back in the old days lot of local would be on the radio and be glad to help there was also a lot of base stations. I have had people get in their car and come lead me to shippers/receivers. Stop at a store and ask someone for directions. Use to be a lot of little dinners with truck parking in about every town seem like you could stop in eat and the people treated you good and all it cost for a good meal was 2 or 3 bucks. Man I miss them good old days

 

My hubby kept the directions to the places he went in a notebook. That way, he had them to refer to in the future.

 

I always called for directions ( from a payphone ) when i first got the load. once i went there i wrote the directions down in a spiral notebook so if i ever went there again. i kept a few big city maps and state maps too . still do. i never relied on the cb for local info.

 

I don't like this post. It reminds me of how old I am. LOL. I used an atlas, fold out map, pay phones, and notepad. I had no Qualcomm so I had to phone in all the time. Sometimes every hour. I could go on about all the other things I didn't have, but have now. For some reason trucking was more fun back then. Now it's a job.

 

The Rand McNally Truckers Road Atlas was my truckers bible. Did my route planning, state to state mileage, log books from it. Had weight laws in it. It had just about everything you needed to go truckin in it. Found more than one delivery dest from a city map in it. I would always try to get close enough to make a local call from a pay phone for directions to deliver.