Question about my GPS app after a truck driver set me straight

Last week a trucker at a rest stop near Flagstaff told me my GPS routing was garbage because it kept sending me down roads with low bridges and tight turns. He said I should switch to a truck-specific app instead of relying on the same one everyone uses for cars. Has anyone else had a GPS route blow up on them because the app didn't account for vehicle size or road restrictions?

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willowg882mo ago

Right outside of Missoula my GPS tried to send a 15 foot box truck down a road with a 12 foot bridge. I backed up a quarter mile in the dark to get out of there. Trucker apps are a lifesaver for that stuff.

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christopherw342mo ago

Two years ago my GPS had me trying to turn a 26 foot U-Haul onto a road with a 10 foot 8 inch clearance bridge in rural Pennsylvania. I only caught it because I stopped at a diner first and the waitress warned me about the low bridge a mile down. The scary part is that most car GPS apps don't even flag weight limits on back roads, so you can end up on a county road that's legally only rated for 10 tons and you'd never know it. The trucker was right that the trucking apps have things like bridge heights and weight limits baked in, but the real problem is that those apps aren't made for regular drivers either. What we really need is a middle ground - something that knows I'm driving a tall van or pulling a trailer but isn't trying to route me around weigh stations.

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