Attribute For Large Vehicle Parking

[+beerbreath]

We drive our 38 foot motorhome, towing a Jeep, all over the US, Canada and Mexico, where we do a lot of Geocaching. Our biggest problem is finding large enough places to park. Sometimes we end up on a dead end street and have to unhook our Jeep to get turned around, sometimes we have to back up a great distance to get turned around. An Attribute indicating Big Rig Friendly would be a big help. Also an attribute for Interstate Rest Areas or Other Rest Areas would be very helpful.

[+Team Neos]

I agree with the request for Rest Area icons. Great idea. I am planning a trip now, and becoming frustrated with all the pins on the maps that look like they are just on the interestate only to investigate and find they are on little roads that cross the Interestate.

 

I am a little more leery of the Big Rig Friendly icon.

The parking icon for large vehicles was discussed over on the GeoTruckers site, and the folks there seemed to agree that few people really understand what it means to have a 53 foot tail on the back of your vehicle. Even fewer know the legalities of where big trucks can/can't go.

 

Someone reminded the boards there that just because you see a truck parked somewhere doesn't mean they are supposed to be there. Neos1 has been given directions using roads he should never have been on by employees of the places he was being sent who should know something about the rules of the road for big trucks.

 

I am not sure that I would be any good a estimating how much room a motor home and tow vehicle need to manuever. Are you really goanna trust a $$$$$ dollar RV to my guessing?

 

If it helps at all: Some of the GPS units (Garmin GSmap 60cs, for example) have routing software that you can adjust for various types of vehicles.

[+Super_Nate]

An Attribute indicating Big Rig Friendly would be a big help. Also an attribute for Interstate Rest Areas or Other Rest Areas would be very helpful.

 

Not just rest areas, but an interstate friendly attribute that would include many more than just the rest areas. I have found this to be a really good idea, and thought it should happen

[+Ziggy Crew]

An Attribute indicating Big Rig Friendly would be a big help. Also an attribute for Interstate Rest Areas or Other Rest Areas would be very helpful.

 

Not just rest areas, but an interstate friendly attribute that would include many more than just the rest areas. I have found this to be a really good idea, and thought it should happen

I second the motion.

[+Team Neos]

I'd rather have BOTH, please. There are times when I only want to stop in rest areas, but other times it would be nice to know where the caches near the interstate were.

[+Grumpster]

This is actually where speciality clubs like Geotruckers.com comes in. The caches that we have listed on our site are from truckers who understand the rig's their driving. Speciality clubs (including state/local clube) are a great asset to the niche group they serve as well as Groundspeak. Sites like that make geocaching more accessable and enjoyable to people and enhance the sport.

[+KandRS]

It would be great if there was something like an attribute to work with the Geotrucker.com group. That way a seperate list wouldn't be as needed.

[+Grumpster]

It would be great if there was something like an attribute to work with the Geotrucker.com group. That way a seperate list wouldn't be as needed.

 

I'm not sure how a attribute would be integrated with our site, but all of our truck/RV friendly caches, around 800 of them are in our bookmark file that you can find on our site. Also, 9Key had provided a geotruckers.com listing in his Selector (thanks 9Key)

 

As mentioned by Neos, a truck friendly attribute most likely not work on GC simply because most people have never driven a 10-wheeler and don't really understand what it takes to maneuver one of those things or the legal restrictions that often interfere with their movement. That's where Geotruckers comes in. The membership is built of truckers, RV'ers and others that understand and support "size challenged" vehicles.

[+sTeamTraen]

If it helps at all: Some of the GPS units (Garmin GSmap 60cs, for example) have routing software that you can adjust for various types of vehicles.

 

All Garmin mapping software lets you specify this, even on the PC version you can use to plan the route before you set out (yes, some people still do this, apparently ).

 

However, this is only as good as the mapping data. With the software set to "car", I've been directed many times down rutted footpaths (or forest tracks that disappeared under vegetation 20 years ago). So don't imagine that every single path has been visited by someone with a clipboard going "Bicycle, check; car, check; truck, probably not".

[+Lil Devil]

So don't imagine that every single path has been visited by someone with a clipboard going "Bicycle, check; car, check; truck, probably not".

Last year while traveling the country with my 32 foot long, 12.5 foot tall 5th wheel RV, I used the "truck" setting on my GPS. For a while I thought it did pretty good, but I didn't have another GPS set to "car" to compare it to. Then there was this time in Connecticut where it sent me down this little road that crossed under some railroad tracks. At almost the last moment my wife noticed the sign that said 'Clearance 10" 3"' - I had to stop dead in rush hour traffic, and my wife had to get cars behind me to move so I could back up far enough to turn into a parking lot.

 

Another time in New Jersey we had a similar problem on a big main street that supposedly led to a campground. This bridge has a sensor system ahead of it that detected my rig so a siren went off with flashing lights and everything. Fortunately there was a cross street right before the bridge I was able to turn on that eventually led me to a grade level crossing.

 

Now I don't trust the "truck" setting on my GPS at all

[+Hula Bum]

I agree and agree. While having a "motorhome" attribute would be great in theory, I wouldn't trust most people to tell me if I got get my 27 footer turned around let alone a big rig. Heck, I've seen people driving their own motorhomes that greatly misjudged how much room they needed, so it scary to think what someone that doesn't drive them would think.

How about just more individual bookmarks that let people know? Not a great solution, but if I see 3 or 4 bookmarks on 1 cache that all say the same thing I'll believe it.