Followed GPS Onto Frozen Lake

One more example of why you cannot rely on GPS. It is a tool. it is not full.proof.

Driver Follows GPS onto Frozen Lake

Great advertisement for that company....What an idiot.

I had a young man get on my truck for his 4 week company training and instantly told me he purchased this new $500 gps just for trucking and that he was going to use it. Well I had to give him the bad news as soon as he told me about his purchase, and that was for the first 3 weeks while on the truck he will learn gettin around the country the old fashion way ... by motor carrier map... and company directions from the qualcomm ... He made it the first 3 weeks and the day he turned on his new gps we were leaving a shipper I had been to several times... late at night and he was driving. As we exited his gps was telling him to go straight, about the same time I was telling him to turn left. His response was, "if this gps is telling me to go straight I am going straight" My response was ok... go straight thru the intersection and pull over to the curb and park it... then pack up your gps, and the rest of your stuff, and while you are doing that I will call the company and tell them they have a student who needs a cab.

There was a bit of a silence then he muttered ok... I'll turn left.

I took him a couple of days to ask what it was about that gps issue the other night and I told him... it was a dead end, and I've seen a few trucks backing out of there... he got the picture.

My first mentor and I had a situation one time leaving our West Valley terminal. Swift's routing program had not been updated to show that one of the roads now went through to a light. Instead it wanted you to make a left and a right which left you trying to enter a busy street from a stop sign instead of a stop light.

I told him I was going straight instead of following the navigation since I could clearly see the light. I was told no I had to follow the navigation. This resulted in being stuck at the stop sign for almost 20 minutes.

When he took a breath from complaining about being stuck at the stop sign I looked at him and told him I was sure glad I followed the electronic navigation instead of my eyes.

It was a quiet couple days in the truck.

I let my students use the Qualcomm navigation, but they have to use their eyes and double check routing using the motor carrier atlas.

My response was ok... go straight thru the intersection and pull over to the curb and park it... then pack up your gps, and the rest of your stuff, and while you are doing that I will call the company and tell them they have a student who needs a cab.

WOW........ You're as mean as Rainy!!!

Yeah well you are lucky you didnt come to prime cause i would have requested you as a student lol

this meanie would let loose on you lol

Yeah well you are lucky you didnt come to prime cause i would have requested you as a student lol

this meanie would let loose on you lol

That is the main reason I came back to Swift🤣

Tractor Man

I think you're afraid of Rainy's dungeon! Not that I would blame you.

I have been planning my trips with my road atlas a d finding that it does quite well at bring me where I need to go. But I also use the Qualcomm. So I have a back up plan. I tried going to the Homeless depot from our Indiana terminal and it sent me through residential so I turned around and came back to the terminal for the night. I couldn't find the depot on the road atlas. So I thought I would get to a depot o e of these days.

You can't rely on the Qualcomm for you basic routing.

Raptor

I always used various sources for directions and made sure at least several of them matched up. I would use my GPS, I would look at the Qualcomm directions, and I would use the satellite view on Google Maps. If it seemed straightforward and pretty obvious I'd go with those as long as two of the three matched up with each other.

If I had any doubt at all I would call the customer and get directions. The thing about calling the customer is that they know the little intricacies of getting into the place that won't show up anywhere else. There could be some construction going on with one of the side streets closed, or maybe it's best to use a certain entrance because they have part of the parking lot blocked with trailers or product overflow, or maybe there's an old crabby lady who throws stones at trucks if they go by her house on a certain route - that kind of stuff. You can pick up some very important little details from actually calling the customer.

But I always made sure that several different sources matched up and it all made good sense before I would drive into a place. Trust me, after a bunch of years out there you run into enough problems getting into customers that you want to be very, very certain of things before you go for it. The famous last words of almost anyone who got into a big mess were, "Let's just go. I'm sure it'll be fine."

95% of the time GPS works pretty good but those other 5% really screw you. Thanks to this site I do the Google Earth and I also check Google Maps just to see if it agrees with my GPS. We also have shipper / consignee directions on a Qualcomm. Any questions I always call the shipper or receiver and many times they have recorded messages Directing you the easiest way. I learned this the hard way when I had to drive 40 miles out of my way in West Virginia just to find a turn around. What a lesson that taught me. Just today I was leaving Edgerton Kansas and my GPS kept telling me I was on a no truck Road when I was a half a mile from I-35. I'm pretty sure a new driver would have freaked out. I knew I was good because I was on a state highway.