There will always be weather to drive through and road conditions to bypass.
As a truck driver, you must plan out your routes, whether you are staying local or driving across the United States. There are always factors you need to take into consideration such as fuel stations, truck stops, traffic, tolls, and the like. Two important factors are weather conditions and road conditions.
There are a ton of different weather apps you can use however, researching all of them is time consuming and frustrating. Your friendly FR8 Solutions Dispatch and Brokerage team have taken the time to do the research for you. Below is a list of the top three, we feel, are your best options. All options listed have free versions and are available for Android and Apple users. Keep in mind, if you want more features, there will be a cost associated with those.
The Weather Channel:
- Easy to use
- Interactive for different periods of days
- Severe weather alerts
Storm Shield:
- Up-to-date local severe weather alerts
- Uses GPS locations for alerts instead of County-based data
AccuWeather:
- Simple to use
- Integrates with your calendar
- Provides minute to minute forecasts for the next two hours based on GPS location
Drive Weather:
- Easy to use app or website
- Maps out weather, wind, temps, road conditions, and radar along your route
- Allows you to compare weather conditions on different routes
Road conditions don’t necessarily just mean weather related issues. Summer is right around the corner, and for much of the United States, that means road work. You don’t want to find yourself sitting for long periods of time in road construction, if at all possible. And let’s face it, accidents happen far more than we want. We also ran across a study that shows the top 100 spots for the worst bottlenecks.
This picture shows the states with a top 100 truck bottleneck. For the full study with all of the bottleneck locations listed by state, please go to https://truckingresearch.org/atri-research/bottlenecks-congestion-infrastructure-funding/
It is important to keep up to date on all road conditions while driving. Using one or more of these apps and/or websites will allow you to plan a different route if possible and also prepare you for what’s ahead.
The Federal Highway Administration:
- https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/trafficinfo/
- You can search by state and it will pull up several different options such as; weather, road construction, real time traffic information, ect.
The National Weather Service:
- https://www.weather.gov/cys/unitedstatesroadconditions
- It lists all of the states, phone numbers, and direct links
One of the big perks with using FR8 Solutions Dispatch team is the fact that we take into consideration where you want to go, negotiate the best rates possible, look at the weather before booking loads, and keep track of your route from start to finish. This allows you, the driver, to focus on driving safe. While the apps are great to have, using a dispatcher streamlines the process and saves you headaches. Contact us today for more information.
