Whats hot and Whats not

I use a lot of technology in the cab to get me through the day.

I have also bought a lot more stuff that I never use.

There are lots of things that look good, catch your eye in magazines or on e-bay that are useless.

I have bought inverters, DVD players, kettles, DAB radios and more leads, chargers, converters and inverters to power a small village.

I have a list of stuff that I swear by and a pile of crap in drawers all around my house.

Ill tell you a little bit about what my routine was and what kit I used while I was driving to give you an idea of what’s useful and what’s not.

The first thing I did in the truck is log into the company computer that was mounted on the dash.

Then I write out a Tacho chart, and that’s officially the start of the shift.

I would start my hour guard and that keeps me legal throughout the day.

An hour guard is a timing device that you press when you start to drive and then press again when you stop. If you put the trucks tacho on break then you put the hour guard on break as well.

The hour guard is programmed with the latest European working time directive legislation and the Tacho regulations and automatically keeps a track on all your shift times and also keeps a track of your daily and weekly rest periods.

Anyone driving a truck will know that these regulations are an absolute minefield when it comes to trying to stay legal.

With an hour guard as long as you press the right button at the right time you should keep yourself legal.

Next I would start my daily vehicle checks, I wont list them here because everyone should know them by heart.

You can find hour guards here . Davey is the inventor and offers amazing after sales support here

Next thing I used to do was to check the load that was written down on the notes was actually on the back; this would be where the fun usually started.

You could find your load any where, from still sitting on the forklift to buried at the back of the standing trailers.

After the vehicle checks I would check that everything is tied down and secured, I would make sure the back doors were closed and the curtains were all shut tight.

At the start at most shifts I’d fuel up.

The truck had a 300 l tank so I would never be caught out.

Once I’m ready to go Ill switch on the radio and I have to be honest, I hate Music radio so its either Talksport or Radio 5 live.

The truck had a broken aerial and wont pick up MW without it sounding really bad.

To get around this problem I have a Pure Highway DAB portable that works brilliantly. It links to the fm channels on the in cab radio and even allows you to plug an iPod in.

The Highway works great 95% of the time with the windscreen Arial but in a lot of the far flung places we went to I was getting a lot of drop out.

I found a place that sells magnetic roof Ariel’s and it has never dropped out since.

When the radio is annoying I plug in my IPod, I use two I have one in Pink, yeah pink it’s my daughter’s old one. It’s full of really old Dub classics that I cant get anymore and don’t know how to copy over.

The other one is a new iPod nano. That one links to my laptop and has all my new music on it.

I connect it with an IPod kit I got from Maplins. It has a car charger, and lots of different connectors to charge from USB or even mains.

I once bought a 12v inverter, the type of thing that you can plug in a normal 13 amp plug into.I couldn’t find a 24 volt one for a decent price so being a cheapskate I bought it.

I was planning on using another convertor to drop the power down and succeeded in blowing all the fuses in the truck. No sat nav that day!

I would usually check the route the night before to see how long it was going to take and therefore what time I had to get up.

All sat navs will send you the wrong way it’s in their DNA.

They are programmed to plan the shortest route and will often pick a county track or a tiny B road that runs parallel to a motorway or a dual carriageway. A two minute check on a lorry friendly map will save you lots of trouble further down the road.

I would normally jot down a junction number on the delivery note to remind me to ignore the sat nav at that point.

If you ignore the sat nav it will correct itself and eventually pick a route that is suitable for your size of vehicle.

Bridge heights are also available on a trucker map and on most sat navs now.

Technology undoubtedly helps the lorry driver’s day a great deal and the more technology minded the driver is the more stuff he will use.

I worked with drivers that wouldn’t use a sat nav no matter what. I was one of only two other drivers out of 15 that had one.

They all took the mick and insisted they knew best but every now and then they would ask me to put a postcode in and talk them in !

I am hoping to see some decent truck technology at Truckfest on Monday and I will keep the blog posted.