I have a truckers satnav, one of the Chinese ones off eBay. Works well, gets me from A to B and puts me in the correct lane at intersections etc. Last week, deep in the country lanes in rural Staffordshire it took me down lanes that progressively got narrower, to the point where I had to turn around. Was set up as default truck, so checked out what the default truck was in the settings expecting to find a transit pickup or something silly in there. Surprisingly it was set up for an artic…
Now this got me thinking about what a typically more expensive ‘truckers satnav’ does that is different to a regular car satnav? Apart from giving routes that avoid low bridges, it becomes blatantly obvious that it has absolutely no way of knowing how wide some of the B roads and country lanes are, if your outfit is going to get round those hairpin bends (despite inputting your vehicle dimensions beforhand), or if low trees are going to impede your progress, so why the significant difference in cost over a regular satnav? I tell people I have a truckers satnav, but apart from avoiding low bridges, what does it ACTUALLY mean and are we all just falling victim to a marketing ploy?
I’ve always just used a car sat nav and my eyes ,bloke at work paid £400 for a snooper and he still ignores it if it tells him to make a turning he don’t like the look of
My £60 tomtom has seen me through 10 years of driving,7 if that in class 1.when I turn it on now it tells me my maps are 60 months out of date,balls to updating it they want £39!!
Roads really don’t change that much,if they do they are signposted.
My tom-tom has extra features if you use the fleet software they have but other than that its just a regular Nag-nav with truck friendly routing. It does have an option though to select what type of vehicle you have, car, truck, bus, van, caravan etc and will tailor the route to suit.
Radar19:
It does have an option though to select what type of vehicle you have, car, truck, bus, van, caravan etc and will tailor the route to suit.
Think that’s the point of post, do they actually choose a better route depending on dimension you out in? As OP found out when going down the rural roads, not necessarily so apparently.
I use a standard Garmin NagNav and I’ve notice when doing routes it used to try send me down housing estate streets but after a few times ignoring that and staying on main roads it now uses those as route. Beginning to wonder if it ‘learns’ a preferred route if you go that way a few times?
Served me well as I can’t justify (aka can’t afford !) cost of truck one when I can just look at road and see if I think it’ll be ok to go down.
There is supposed to be a difference between truck and car navs but is the difference in cost really worth it, when common sense serves just as well, seeing as these are simply an aid to getting us from A-B?
I have an expensive tom tom 5150 and I configure my width to 12ft rather than the default 9ft and now it never takes me down narrow lanes. Don’t use the default settings is my advice
alder:
I have an expensive tom tom 5150 and I configure my width to 12ft rather than the default 9ft and now it never takes me down narrow lanes. Don’t use the default settings is my advice
Sadly in that instance, I needed to go down country lanes to get to my destination but not to the point where they narrowed down to about 8ft wide and single track, meaning I couldn’t proceed any further.
When you see the predicaments some truckers have got into following their satnavs routing, you automatically assume it is because they have used a regular car satnav, but dedicated truck satnavs with all the vehicle data inputted into them can also put you on unsuitable routes. I speak from experience… Apart from avoiding low bridges, I’d need some convincing now that dedicated ‘truckers’ satnavs are worth the extra dosh?
I have the one from trucktables. Haven’t had a spot of bother from it, though because it uses open-maps (I think) where people can add updates to the maps, it’ll occasionally route you around a road/street that someone has marked a non-existent restriction on (smart NIMBYs do this). Other than that, it’s been great at keeping me away from unsuitable roads.
It gets a bit tetchy though when you try to go down farm lanes / other private access roads. But it does have a big “■■■■ off and leave me alone” button
But as has already been said umpteen times, it’s just an aid. Follow it (or any other sat-nav) blindly and you’ll end up in hot water. MK1 eyeball + engaging brain/common sense wins every time !
Truck navs, be they the cheep £45 off eBay jobbies like mine or the £700 all singing all dancing Tom Tom pro with webfleet and ill drive it for you jobbies that you can ■■■■■ off you money on work on comparing the numbers you enter into the system with the numbers on the weight restriction signs. The majority of them cant deal with signs like Unsuitable for HGV because all it can do is compare X - The weight you entered, with Y - the weight on the sign. It cant think that HGV means over 7.5tonnes or that Unsuitable is effectively the same as illegal.
They are a useful guide, but the driver still needs his wits about him.
nsmith1180:
Truck navs, be they the cheep £45 off eBay jobbies like mine or the £700 all singing all dancing Tom Tom pro with webfleet and ill drive it for you jobbies that you can ■■■■■ off you money on work on comparing the numbers you enter into the system with the numbers on the weight restriction signs. The majority of them cant deal with signs like Unsuitable for HGV because all it can do is compare X - The weight you entered, with Y - the weight on the sign. It cant think that HGV means over 7.5tonnes or that Unsuitable is effectively the same as illegal.
They are a useful guide, but the driver still needs his wits about him.
Dedicated truck satnavs will still send you through 7.5 tonne environmental weight limits (the access only ones), but are you accessing your destination or taking an illegal ‘short cut’? True those weight limits won’t appear on regular paper maps either, but with a ‘truckers’ satnav typically costing double what a car one does, it does beg the question of what ‘extra’ assistance you are getting for your hard earned bucks?
Whilst I’d never trust ANY satnav implicitly, they are without doubt an extremely useful tool.
Don’t know about the cheap Chinese ones, but the TomToms attempt to give you truck friendly routing by keeping to Motorways and A-roads as far as practicable. e.g. Ask it to route from M6 J10 to New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton in Truck mode and it will take you into Wolverhampton on the A454, onto the ring road and then back out on the Wednesfield Road to the hospital. Ask it to plan the same journey in car mode and it will take the obvious shortcut through the Neachells Lane industrial estate, saving over 2 miles. Nothing wrong with taking an artic that way as there are no height/width/weight restrictions - but it is not an A-road so the TomTom won’t take it (unless there is a significant traffic delay).
This approach only starts to fall down though when your destination (or starting point) is situated on an unclassified road, when it may attempt to get you back onto the A-roads as quickly as (legally) possible. You just have to be aware of it and take the opportunity to actually look at the proposed route and adjust it accordingly - just as you would if using a paper map.
alder:
I have an expensive tom tom 5150 and I configure my width to 12ft rather than the default 9ft and now it never takes me down narrow lanes. Don’t use the default settings is my advice
Sadly in that instance, I needed to go down country lanes to get to my destination but not to the point where they narrowed down to about 8ft wide and single track, meaning I couldn’t proceed any further.
When you see the predicaments some truckers have got into following their satnavs routing, you automatically assume it is because they have used a regular car satnav, but dedicated truck satnavs with all the vehicle data inputted into them can also put you on unsuitable routes. I speak from experience… Apart from avoiding low bridges, I’d need some convincing now that dedicated ‘truckers’ satnavs are worth the extra dosh?
This is where my S3 smart phone comes in and google maps so I can see the destination and where the sat nav is taking me.
After years of not bothering with a truck sat nav I considered getting one. I borrowed one from a chap at work to see how they perform, I knew the run but thought I would give it a go. Set it up for the truck including a height of 14ft 11in, first junction out of the yard it tried to turn me towards a bridge we know has a marked height of 14ft 9in it also had me getting to my destination 1hr 40 mins later than I knew it took. I gave him it back & bought a new bike saddle instead
BillyHunt:
After years of not bothering with a truck sat nav I considered getting one. I borrowed one from a chap at work to see how they perform, I knew the run but thought I would give it a go. Set it up for the truck including a height of 14ft 11in, first junction out of the yard it tried to turn me towards a bridge we know has a marked height of 14ft 9in it also had me getting to my destination 1hr 40 mins later than I knew it took. I gave him it back & bought a new bike saddle instead
Oh right and did the bike saddle get you there any quicker?
BillyHunt:
After years of not bothering with a truck sat nav I considered getting one. I borrowed one from a chap at work to see how they perform, I knew the run but thought I would give it a go. Set it up for the truck including a height of 14ft 11in, first junction out of the yard it tried to turn me towards a bridge we know has a marked height of 14ft 9in it also had me getting to my destination 1hr 40 mins later than I knew it took. I gave him it back & bought a new bike saddle instead
Oh right and did the bike saddle get you there any quicker?
BillyHunt:
After years of not bothering with a truck sat nav I considered getting one. I borrowed one from a chap at work to see how they perform, I knew the run but thought I would give it a go. Set it up for the truck including a height of 14ft 11in, first junction out of the yard it tried to turn me towards a bridge we know has a marked height of 14ft 9in it also had me getting to my destination 1hr 40 mins later than I knew it took. I gave him it back & bought a new bike saddle instead
I hope it was a proper truckers bike saddle? Wide fitment, heavy duty springs and wind deflectors…
BillyHunt:
After years of not bothering with a truck sat nav I considered getting one. I borrowed one from a chap at work to see how they perform, I knew the run but thought I would give it a go. Set it up for the truck including a height of 14ft 11in, first junction out of the yard it tried to turn me towards a bridge we know has a marked height of 14ft 9in it also had me getting to my destination 1hr 40 mins later than I knew it took. I gave him it back & bought a new bike saddle instead
I hope it was a proper truckers bike saddle? Wide fitment, heavy duty springs and wind deflectors…
I have a Snooper truck nav, it will route around low bridges,width restrictions,weight limits ect,But what all of those truck orientated sat navs don’t /can’t do is route you correctly, where there are no restrictions on roads for LGV’s, all sat naff’s default to quickest/shortest route available if no restrictions, so will instruct you to turn left/right into residential streets, that may theoretically be a route to your destination , in practise would mean a lot of grief should steering wheel attendant fail to engage some basic common sense or use something far more superior than any micro chip/computer, their BRAIN!! A sat naff will never fully replace that, well not in my life time,
tommy t:
I have a Snooper truck nav, it will route around low bridges,width restrictions,weight limits ect,But what all of those truck orientated sat navs don’t /can’t do is route you correctly, where there are no restrictions on roads for LGV’s, all sat naff’s default to quickest/shortest route available if no restrictions, so will instruct you to turn left/right into residential streets, that may theoretically be a route to your destination , in practise would mean a lot of grief should steering wheel attendant fail to engage some basic common sense or use something far more superior than any micro chip/computer, their BRAIN!! A sat naff will never fully replace that, well not in my life time,
Totally incorrect in my experience. Where there are no restrictions my TomTom 5150 (and the 7000 I had before it) will attempt to route via Motorways and A-roads. It will only resort to B-roads or even unclassified residential streets if there is no practicable A-road alternative. It normally only deviates from A-roads for the last mile or so to get to the actual destination.
Maybe Snoopers don’t do this, but TomTom certainly do.
Apart from avoiding low bridges, I’d need some convincing now that dedicated ‘truckers’ satnavs are worth the extra dosh?
