Noremac:
Do you have a second man?On the positive side you won’t be the tallest of vehicles and getting turned is easier in a 7.5 tonne.
On the negative, getting the atlas out at very opportunity isn’t really realistic on this kind of multi-drop. In days gone by your second man would have been the navigator, but your chances of getting someone cooperative are somewhere between slim and none I would guess.
It is a personal choice, but I would content myself with occasionally taking the scenic route happy in the knowledge that I am getting paid for it. I wouldn’t worry about occasionally holding people up, they will probably be ordering furniture or whatever at some point in the future. Your second man will probably huff and puff too, but that will just be when he is actually awake.
I think you were responding to my post?
I agree getting out the Trucker’s Atlas isn’t an option when driving. But I meant plotting a route before one sets off. Even then roadworks (temporary one’s that aren’t notified on traffic warnings are the real pain - I watched an artic driver once have to back up almost two mile… I was ok in an 18T and could reverse into a turning).
You are right about a navigator (porter) - I’ve had jobs for B&Q and Knowhow. They expect you to do all the driving while they snooze. “You’re the driver” will be the words uttered. What I found was a porter would be the back seat driver and then slag you off in the office. I stopped doing such work - not surprising such jobs are often agency and not worth the bother.
My other reason for using a phone app is that I am a linux user. Garmin and TomTom only allow may updates through their software which is windows based. Older Garmins could run 3rd party maps as I used to with OSM (OpenStreet map Data) which were updated every month and a 600mb file could just be copied to the SDcard which would be read first before the internal stored maps. Whenever I had tested maps I have found OSM to be by far the best.