Well, My Rookie Mistake Finally Happened

How is that your GPS was so far off? If you did match up the directions on your GPS with your paper maps, how did you come to be off, the second time? Good recovery though, good thinking. I use Google maps for the automobile all the time on my GPS phone. It's never off.

I hope all my future mistakes are similar to yours. I admire the way you used your head and executed sound judgement. That's a great lesson you passed on to anyone who reads this.

Great job Grumpy. I agree that is doesn't sound like much of a mistake. Rather, just part of the resilience need to to your job.

Good idea to call the cops especially in those Northeast towns where things are old and tight. I was in the Boston suburbs and my GPS kept telling me I had low bridges and I was petrified of hitting one. Called the police explained the situation and the dispatcher told me I should get a professional GPS... I told him I had one... LOL. His tone changed immediately and told me the route to take. Haven't been back to the Northeast since and I'm thankful every every load I get that doesn't take me there

Hell I was Schneider was that way, but no I literally spend 90-95% of my time in the North East... Never gone anymore West then Laredo Texas. That's more south west. I only every go south when I'm either going home or coming back to work then sometimes I might be in the south a few days or a week then I'll be sent to the North East, sometimes I'm sent directly back to the North East.

I was told we would be going to all 48 lower states, but there is no sign of me ever going West or even staying in the south more.

Of course I don't refuse loads or anything alike, so I go anywhere they dispatch me too but I don't like the North East much.

Pro tip😅 When you get close. Always find a rest area before you start getting close to your exit. Pull off, read company directions and then pull it up on your phone GPS. Look at things, do they add up and make sense?

I have A company company App that generally supplies directions and if needed I will screen shot it. Look at it as needed and check both my truck gps and my phone GPS just in case things don't look the same.... Construction, one GPS or the other just being plain wrong.... Whatever the case may be.

GOM, that's not nearly close to the rookie mistakes I've committed or worse, the stories that are out here & the unemployed rookie drivers to back them up. You handled both situation with a pro attitude & resolved your issues with everything intact.

One quick story that I read in here was a guy that got on the highway going in the wrong direction & when he realized his mistake only compounded the situation by trying to make a uturn on the grass & had to get towed. Had the road shutdown for hours. If he'd pulled over & checked his Google maps, he'd have seen there was a crossover lane just up the road.

I myself got into a pickle when I absentmindedly got off the GPS guided exit, even though both my trainer & I had agreed earlier that going to the next exit would've been better. I couldn't find anywhere to make a u-turn, kept following the GPS to a mountain road that was so steep & I couldn't go past 5th gear, with the GPS now saying the road IT put me on wasnt for commercial vehicles. Long, short of it, I got through it unscathed & the exit I should've used was right next to the 90. Lesson learned, that's all they are, is teaching moments that stay filed away in that stupid shyte I did as a rookie drawer in our memory.

Hope this is the worst rookie mistake in your career. Good luck & stay safe.

The Story Splitter is taking about

My post telling that story is like the 3rd post down.

One quick story that I read in here was a guy that got on the highway going in the wrong direction & when he realized his mistake only compounded the situation by trying to make a uturn on the grass & had to get towed. Had the road shutdown for hours. If he'd pulled over & checked his Google maps, he'd have seen there was a crossover lane just up the road.

The Story Splitter is taking about

My post telling that story is like the 3rd post down.

One quick story that I read in here was a guy that got on the highway going in the wrong direction & when he realized his mistake only compounded the situation by trying to make a uturn on the grass & had to get towed. Had the road shutdown for hours. If he'd pulled over & checked his Google maps, he'd have seen there was a crossover lane just up the road.

Thanks PlanB!

Notes, etc., will not work because I need reading glasses, so notes are would need to be 3x5 FEET for me to be able to see them, and when it is dark, no size will work.

This is how I deal with it. Bi focal glasses, 4x6 lined yellow sticky notes, BIG BLOCK LETTERS, Stick it on your instrument cluster. I like to use the dome light if necessary instead of the map light over the dash. Written turn by turn instructions are CRUCUAL out here. There is no substitute in my opinion. The GPS WILL F you up sooner or later. Don't ask me how I know this. You just found out. BTW.....great recovery Grumpy..... Lesson learned.

Doesn’t sound like a mistake to me. At least the police came out for you. I went past the location I was supposed to go to in VA once because the name was different, and there was a sign right around the bend. No trucks. Pulled over and called the police. He told me there was nowhere to turn ahead, and no one could help me. He told me to use my trucker skills. 😂 ended up pulling in a driveway and backing across the road into a housing development (after stopping traffic). This was in my first week. I learned to look at the address not the name.