About Gps...and Use Map..

Thanks for the tip Starcar, that is one of many things I truly love about this awesome site. Tips and tricks from the experts.

We have a Rand Macnalley 510 trucking GPS on our truck. The other day I was driving across I80 in Western Utah across the Bonneville Salt Flats. It might be the longest straightest piece of interstate in the US. About 50 miles of dead straight road. Right about 2/3rds of the way across my GPS pipped up with "warning curve ahead". She actually does this kind of thing all the time, and we think she was responding to an up coming exit. One advantage I have to a lot of truckers is, I have used GPS tech for close to 25 years in what I used to do. In the old days I used static tracking stations to provide ultra accurate coordinates on 1st order land surveying stations. We would set those up fr hours at a time, and often it would be at night, because that was when we had the best satellite coverage. You can track that into recent times when we had asll day and night coverage using one station along with static broadcast stations that have come along in most areas of the US. The bottom line is the satellite tracking on your units goes in and out. Your trucker GPS is as only as good as your last update. The maps they use can be based on maps done 100 years ago when roads were wagon trails. There have been so many people killed using GOS around death Valley, that the US Government stepped in and updated the maps to prevent people from using those old wagon trails in cars. (Seriously, park rangers spearheaded that because they got tired of finding dead people following GPS roads.) It is a great toll that has told of us of bad routes we were given directions for. It has also led us on some bad routes we did not want to take. The other night I got off an exit for a truck stop that the GPS had given me, and as soon as I got off the interstate, it told me my route had a weight violation, as I was pulling into the fuel isle at the Loves that it had taken me too. That was for a driver change because I had 20 minutes left on my clock.

I have the Rand 720 and I love it. I always use it in conjunction with the QualComm though. And if there's any conflicting info, I always refer to the QC. I'd say 90% of the time they match up however. What I love about my Rand is when I'm getting close to shutting down for the day, I can find all the truck stops along my route, or rest areas without any problems.

I use two GPS's. My and Mcnally 720 ,which btw just had a major 6 hour update last week, and Google Maps on my Android. Between the two I have yet to be steered wrong. Plus I also use customer directions and my qualcomm directions.

Im a local p/d driver in the sf bay area, i usually just use google maps to route myself, i have to drive on "no trucks" roads everyday to make my deliveries and pickups so ive never felt the need to buy a truck specific gps. Wouldnt do me much good in downtown san francisco haha.

During my most recent (starting CDL rating upgrade training tomorrow to go from Class "B" to Class "A") bout of OTR driving, I used both a Cobra HD6000 Truck GPS, Rand McNally Atlas & city/regional maps.

The GPS and city/regional maps to get to/from the interstate system to the shipper/consignee. The atlas and memory from doing LTL/Drop-n-hook driving years ago to get from city to city. I can only handle the GPS voice for short periods of time although both co-drivers couldn't get across the street without GPS so most of the time I had to put up with it the whole trip. Sad.

Now you know the second reason I'm upgrading my CDL...so I can run solo and not have to put up with co-drivers that refuse to learn (yes, I actually had the last co-driver flat out say "why learn it? You know how so we're good.")and push off most of the tasks of driving onto whoever their team partner is. The first reason is stated in our profile.