GPS Help

[Duck]

The GPS works for me, that's why I use it. I can remember when I first started trucking, it wasn't that long ago, nevertheless, I was using a GPS. I was as productive as 20 year veterans. I could navigate the most confusing cities with ease. I was made fun of when I offered up with routing based on my GPS. I was always right though. I remember one time we were sitting waiting on a load, someone asked what the best route was to some place. I routed seven different routes on my GPS before they came up with one using maps. Out of those seven, I knew which was the shortest route.

You must've been lucky. Only in the last 2-3 years have they gotten true, actual TRUCK GPS units that won't route you under low bridges or on restricted routes. I still don't think they're perfect yet though. I hitched a ride to one of my company's terminals with a guy who had a Garmin DEZL and he said that it's told him to make U-turns on a 2 lane road before.

I really don't care what anyone else uses. If you think an Atlas is the best way to go, more power to you. For all I care, you can use the North star, or a Sextant, Octant or lines drawn in the dirt, me, I'll stick to a GPS until something better comes along.

I've actually used the sun to navigate before. Seriously, I ain't joking.

I was only 14 years old when I found my way home from Yorkville, IL to Romeoville, IL via empty, harvested soybean and corn fields, with a dirt bike. My buddy's pickup broke down at a place where we had brought the bikes to go riding & that was before cell phones. I literally just kept my back to the sun until I was in familiar territory. I got home, went to his house & got his dad & he went out & brought him some tools & a new starter.

About the same time, I went on a road trip to visit relatives in Springfield, MO with my sister & her first husband. When we were going through St. Louis, I was lying on my back in the back seat and something didn't seem right. The sunlight was hitting the car from the wrong direction or something. I sat up & said "we're going north". Jeff's dumb ass said "no we're not, we just got on I-44 south". I argued with him for a minute or two until we saw a sign on the right shoulder that said "I-70 West", which runs north through downtown before curving west. My sister thought that was hilarious.

 

[terrylamar]

You must've been lucky. Only in the last 2-3 years have they gotten true, actual TRUCK GPS units that won't route you under low bridges or on restricted routes. I still don't think they're perfect yet though. I hitched a ride to one of my company's terminals with a guy who had a Garmin DEZL and he said that it's told him to make U-turns on a 2 lane road before.

"Lucky?" Just because a voice coming out of the GPS says to do something, doesn't mean that I am going to do it. Just because your paper Atlas said to go a certain route and you are looking at a low bridge in front of you, are you going to continue? A GPS or an Atlas isn't gospel, you have to use common sense.

 

[Duck]

Just because your paper Atlas said to go a certain route and you are looking at a low bridge in front of you, are you going to continue?

Yes. The paper atlas is never wrong, so the sign must be. Hammer down.