Whenever dispatchers/fleet managers route a driver into a city and to the shipper do they usually route them the fastest and direct way and take into consideration the least amount of sharp right or left-hand turns? :rock:

NO!! Frankly, unless your FM/disp was a long time driver....there is only a "tinker's chance in hades" that they would even have a clue. Most companies don't have FM's/disps that drove trucks, and beyond what they can see in a map or a mapping program there is probably a 99.9% chance they actually have no idea.

Thats why it is "incumbent upon you to be properly prepared" to go from point A to point B. They may give you directions that are usable once you get into the town or city you are picking up or delivering to, but even that can be consider "circumspect" depending on what company you drive for and who gave the directions....and how much attention the trucking company paid to those directions....

I resolve my directions with two different "street level" routing programs, and even then consider it walking on thin ice....until I am at the dock. 8)

Here is the scary part about many directions that you get. They are often given by some secretary who tells you how she gets to work in her Ford Escort.

We're lucky enough to have customer directions that we can access through qualcom...with the directions coming from other drivers that have been to the particular customer in the past. They have been dead on 100% of the time we have made the direction request.

I saw a web site that advertised a truck routing service for $75 a year. Each time you hit the road, you could request a route that was "trucker friendly".

The service would fax the directions, map, + delays due to road construction to the next truck stop you were going to stop at. Seemed like a great idea, but I can't locate the web address now.

Of course, you should also carry the most current Motor Carriers Atlas with you as well.

You know it is funny, I've had a few times where I've had to deliver to little stores and couldn't find it. I've called and actually heard "There is a parking ramp that has doors right next to where we are inside."

I understand they don't know what the load is coming in, but the clearance on a parking ramp would only handle a car. Do they think their LTL is coming in a car??? It is crazy.

Isn't there an unwritten rule that dispatchers are not allowed to ask logical questions when they get directions? They are to write the directions down ver batim even when the directions make no sense to anyone with any sense of direction- right?