Tips On Big City Driving?

I am a new solo driver and I am wonder if anyone has tips on driving through major cities? I was driving through Jersey last week with 42,000lbs of paper rolls and by the time I delivered I thought I was about to have a heart attack! lol but any tips of being safe or anything would be great

Take your time. Use effective trip planning if you're going through a big city. For example, if you're going to be driving through Dallas and your delivery is only 15 miles away. Don't leave 20 minutes early assuming you'll be driving 60+. Leave earlier just in case. Always expect the unexpected. Have a Plan B when things go wrong.

And most importantly, have a good following distance. Following distance is what will save you if something unexpected happens in front of you.

I try to plan my trips through big cities at times that are not busy. But what I do - I allow for extra time, I constantly monitor my following distance, and don't get distracted.

I hope I helped.

Excellent question.

The first thing you should do to take the pressure off yourself is make sure you're plenty early for the delivery if possible. If I was going into someplace like downtown Chicago, I would call ahead and find out what their overnight parking situation is. If they have a place to park overnight and it's not a horrible area of the city I would go in the night before and spend the night. If it's a bad part of the city or I wasn't sure, I would plan on arriving about 4:30-5:00 a.m. - well ahead of rush hour - and get a nap in before they arrived. So arrive early and well before rush hour when possible.

The next thing to do is confirm your directions using multiple sources. Call the customer for directions, check your GPS map, and check your company's directions over the Qualcomm. Make sure that at least two of the three sources seem to match up. Your company's directions on Qualcomm are going to be the least reliable (sad as that is). But if you can match up the customer's directions you were given with what you're seeing on the GPS, you should be good to go. Verify that there are no low bridges on the route also.

Another thing you should do is use Google Earth to zoom in on the customer. You can usually figure out where to pull in and where the docks are located. That can be a very big deal. You're rolling through a crowded city and you see the place up ahead but where do you pull in? Is it the first entrance? Is there more than one entrance? When you call for directions make sure to ask this and then verify it on Google Earth. If you pass the place in a crowded city, you're in for a nightmare trying to get turned around somewhere.

Another thing I used to do was figure out where I could turn around if I passed the place. You would think "How could you pass it with all of these sources of information?" Well, usually you won't. But sometimes you'll have something freaky happen like there's road construction blocking your normal way in or a detour takes you in a different way. These kind of things happen. So try to get a feel for the area on Google Earth. Watch out for residential areas...know where they are and make sure you avoid them.

And of course the most important aspect of driving a truck which certainly applies here - do not panic. Relax. Even if a nightmare scenario plays out and you cause a major disruption in traffic - so what? It doesn't matter. I've had my truck break down in downtown Chicago while pulling into a place. Blocked the entire roadway at rush hour on a Friday. Clogged up downtown like you wouldn't believe. The police came out, the city transportation director came out because I was blocking buses - it was like a major event! But ya know what happened? The tow truck came out, moved me out of the way, the mechanic fixed the problem, and everyone went about their day just fine. Happy ending. So whatever you do, don't panic and don't hit anything. If you have to pull the brakes and park it until you can figure out what to do then do that. If people get mad - well who cares. You know what would really make them mad??? If they had to drive to the nearest ocean or river port to pick up their goods because trucks weren't bringing them to their local stores. So too bad. They'll just have to wait.

Brett is right about calling the customer. This is especially true, if the directions are confusing, or don't make sense.

Dave

Also never assume your route in is the best route out. We made that mistake in NJ. Went in on a 4 lane divided highway, the overpass going north was fine. On the way out the overpass was low. Little sign at the extreme right in the emergency lane said 13' 7". So we did get under it. In 1st gear, with my co driver spotting the whole time, we did clear it about 2 inches. The fact that other drivers had scraped the bottom of it probably gave us a little extra clearance.

Jersey my advice is just keep moving straight they will either move or get ran over

Jersey my advice is just keep moving straight they will either move or get ran over

True enough, Rebel...in those cities, if you drive nicely, they spot you for a tourist in a heartbeat..if you drive like you don't care, they think you are one of them..