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Owning the Wheel: the open road

The last few months we’ve been talking about ways to reduce your fuel costs. One of the suggestions was getting off the big road and running the road less traveled.

Like most things that I recommend I wanted to give this a try and see if it really worked. So for the past couple months I’ve been keeping my travels restricted primarily to the back roads and I thought I’d talk a little about what I’ve noticed driving this way.

Before I start with observations let me clarify the requirements. The primary one is you have to slow down. The back roads are not a place to make time, and running 70+ on many of them in not only unsafe it’ll turn you into prime bear bait. So if you’ve got a heavy right foot and are not willing to look for a better way to save fuel and money, stop reading now as this month’s column is not meant for you. But if you’re tired of the big road or want to get away from the stress and strain of running hammer down all day, this may be a viable option for you.

The first thing you’ll notice when you get off the big road is that all the tension that surrounds you on the big road is gone. The four wheelers zipping in and out, the big trucks flying by, the bears on the overpass all disappear and you’re left with just the road stretching out in front of you. This isn’t to say that there aren’t new issues to deal with but rather to point out what some of the trade offs are going to be.

In order to make this new plan work you are going to need to plan your trips a lot more carefully than you do when running the big road. A couple days ago I ran a road that was really fun to run but which I never would have wanted to be on if I’d been on a schedule. I did this purposely as I wanted to see the area and wasn’t on a schedule. But this road illustrates what can happen if you don’t do your homework. I called it the “day of the sign” as there were signs on every curve and it was a day when I averaged 33mph. Not something that’s practical when you’re on a schedule. A lack of planning could result in you running that type of road unintentionally and it could put a serious kink in your day.  So let’s talk a little about trip planning.

The goal of this new exercise is to find ways to run that meet the following requirements:

1. Have a minimum number of towns along the route.

2. Don’t wind their way through serious mountains.

3. Are not restricted for weight, height, etc., and

4. Do not have much traffic on them.

Let’s start with number 3, restricted roads. The easiest way to verify your routes is to use one of the truck specific routing program or web sites. There are a number of Web sites that offer truck specific routing free of charge. www.truckmiles.com is the free site offered by ProMiles and you can run a route there to see how it sends you. Be sure to use the “Truck Shortest” as the routing method. That will send you the shortest way without going on any restricted roads and that will usually get you off the big road for much of your trip. The other option, which is “Practical,” uses a combination of time and distance to get you there in the shortest time, so it will tend to favor the big road.

If you are not comfortable with the internet or simply prefer to have the routing with you whether you are or aren’t on the internet there are a couple of routing programs that you can get for your laptop that are trucking specific. The owner-operator version of Truckers Helper, for example, offers routing as an option and uses the ProMiles routing engine to route you with truck specific routing. You can also connect a GPS to your laptop and use the program for in-cab navigation. Or, if you’re not a computer person yet there is always the old standard trucking atlas. Just be sure whatever you use is trucking specific.

Number tw avoid windy mountain roads. When you’re checking the routing, if you’re using a mapping program, be sure that you zoom in enough to see how the road runs. Roads with a lot squiggles and switchbacks are going to be a major slow down. As I said above, my mountain drive was a challenging and fun drive, but I averaged 33 mph for an eight hour day, not something that’s practical when you’re on a schedule. So stick to the roads where you can average 50-55 mph.

Finally, number one: avoiding towns (and its cohort: avoiding busy roads). Generally the really small towns are not a problem. A stop sign in the middle of town and a short 30mph zone as you go through the town. But the mid-size towns can sometimes be an issue.

So when you’re planning your route, look at the number of towns along the proposed route and at the size of the towns. A town with a lot of stop signs and/or signals is going to be a pain to get through, though a small price to pay if it keeps you out of a big city at rush hour. The route with the small towns along it is also going to offer a lot less traffic.

The final thing to consider in avoiding towns and traffic is the area of the country. Obviously you are not going to find a lot of good back roads to run in the northeast or in other very heavily populated areas. But in much of the rest of the country there are miles of open road and a variety of ways around the big cities. There are also a lot of really good U.S. routes; some of them even four-lane divided highways that have very little traffic on them. Finding them just requires a little advance planning, but the rewards can be worth the effort.

Slowing down can save you fuel and can save you some wear and tear on your body and mind. There’s nothing that refreshes the soul like that ribbon of highway stretching out in front of you as far as the eye can see and not another car or truck in sight. Set the cruise and just let the miles tick away without the stress and strain of dodging the four-wheelers and keeping the eyes peeled for the bears. It’s the road less traveled and can offer you an option to the boredom and stresses of the big road.

Till next month, be safe.

John Ewing is a former owner/operator and the author of The Truckers Helper, business management software for truckers. If you'd like to ask questions or make comments on this article please visit the forums at www.thetruckershelper.com. He will be happy to answer any questions on trucking or managing your trucking business.