Low Clearance question
What, if anything , do people use to determine low clearance bridges, etc while traveling? Trying to avoid surprises. I use google maps, but it does not tell in in advance. Thanks!
Forum Discussion
Motor Carriers Road Atlas marks the highways designated for use by large trucks, and lists the exceptions to state minimum clearances and maximum weights on those routes. These designated highways include the U.S. numbered highways and many state highways, what some people call back roads.
Going through urban areas, following designated highways, it helps to follow what is marked as the "Truck Route." Sometimes this is just to keep truck traffic out of crowded areas, sometimes it is because there are clearance issues or substandard weight limits.
On the real back roads (county roads, forest roads, etc) you need to be heads up, paying attention to early warnings for weight and clearance limits. In most places, these will be posted just after you enter such a road segment from a highway, or just after you pass the place you could have turned off onto an alternative road; that's why "heads up."
Some RV and trucker GPS-based routing and guidance systems will try to route you around weight and clearance limits, but these issues change all the time (on short notice for construction related issues) so that the routing database may not be up to date, or may not have information to take care of you when you leave the route the GPS gave you. Construction zones almost always have detours for large vehicles, if the construction limits vehicle size. Sometimes these detours are very long.
The GPS routings (or clearance aware routing systems on the web) need to be used judiciously. You might need 13'2" clearance, and if you put in 13'6" just to be safe, you could very wall be routed an extra 400 miles to go around a place you could have squeezed through.
Going through urban areas, following designated highways, it helps to follow what is marked as the "Truck Route." Sometimes this is just to keep truck traffic out of crowded areas, sometimes it is because there are clearance issues or substandard weight limits.
On the real back roads (county roads, forest roads, etc) you need to be heads up, paying attention to early warnings for weight and clearance limits. In most places, these will be posted just after you enter such a road segment from a highway, or just after you pass the place you could have turned off onto an alternative road; that's why "heads up."
Some RV and trucker GPS-based routing and guidance systems will try to route you around weight and clearance limits, but these issues change all the time (on short notice for construction related issues) so that the routing database may not be up to date, or may not have information to take care of you when you leave the route the GPS gave you. Construction zones almost always have detours for large vehicles, if the construction limits vehicle size. Sometimes these detours are very long.
The GPS routings (or clearance aware routing systems on the web) need to be used judiciously. You might need 13'2" clearance, and if you put in 13'6" just to be safe, you could very wall be routed an extra 400 miles to go around a place you could have squeezed through.
