How do people plan a route to an area they have never been to before. for example how do you avoid a no right turn. do you plan contingencies or do you build up a feel for where they might be with experience?
coop
Experience has a…
Great deal to do with it. Like the other old timers on here, I think I’ve done every county in England, most of Wales and up as far as The Kyle of Lochalsh. I can’t think of any junctions on the M1 I haven’t been on or off at. Before Sat-nav, we just got the map out and headed off to where the delivery address was. That might have been central London or some village in the middle of nowhere, it didn’t matter, I just drove off. But, back then I could gaurantee to find somewhere to park (even in London), no one was on my back wondering what time I was gonna get somewhere (which I don’t get where I am now anyway) and one could be ‘imaginative’ with your hours if you really ended up in a fix. That’s what tramping was and that’s why I did it. Parking in town centres, fish and chip suppers, a few pints in the local boozer and the odd slack barmaid.
From what I read, you’re doing pretty much a set run. Once you learn all the different ways to the same place, you’ll start feeling better about things. I digress, map planning is easy for distance work. Get on the M3 at Winchester, M25, M1 get off at J41 and your where you wanna be. That’s half the country in just three roads. Town centre planning is much harder. One ways, bridges, weight limits and no lorry zones (none of which were marked on the A-Z back in the day). All I can suggest is you take yer time in traffic, if your not sure you want to turn right or left somewhere, ignore everyone behind you, slow down and get it right first time. You won’t get the hang of this driving malarkey overnight.
I do do a fixed set of drops but I have been looking at ways to improve my route rather than doubling back on myself or to avoid problem areas.
Coop correct me if I’m wrong but are you not driving a 7.5 tonne?
Just use google maps and the routes you get aren’t going to be far wrong - have a scan through the route first to make sure it’s all looks fine.
You aren’t going to get many bridges your vehicle won’t fit through and you won’t get many weight restrictions you can’t go down.
Just relax and try and enjoy it.
I used to look at my phillips camping map for bridges, heights, widths and weights, and on google maps once I had gotten off the main routes looking for the entrances especially multi gate factories etc.