About
About TruckTripGuide.com
Who writes TruckTripGuide.com, why it exists, and how content is researched and maintained.
TruckTripGuide.com is an independent planning guide for truck parking, HOS planning, rest areas, fuel stops, weather preparation, mountain grades, weigh stations, state planning, and freight corridors.
The site is built for practical operations conversations. It does not claim to be a live parking app, navigation system, legal service, or fuel-price tool.
Who writes this site
TruckTripGuide.com was founded by Dale Connors, a former OTR driver and fleet safety coordinator with 18 years in commercial trucking.
Dale drove over-the-road for 11 years before moving into fleet dispatch and safety coordination for a mid-size dry van carrier. During that time he trained new dispatchers on HOS planning, helped develop load-acceptance procedures built around realistic driver hours, and spent time riding along with drivers to understand where planning fails in practice.
The site grew out of a personal frustration. In dispatch, I watched experienced drivers end up in bad situations — parked on highway ramps, making desperate improvised stops, or pushing hours that should have been resolved at dispatch. Almost every one of those situations had a planning conversation that should have happened earlier, before the truck was already committed. That is what this site tries to help with.
The content is written from the operations side of the industry, not as academic safety guidance. When I describe how detention consumes the 14-hour window or why parking pressure builds near metro freight corridors, those are patterns I saw repeatedly in both the cab and the dispatch office. The planning habits in these guides are the ones that made the difference in practice, not in theory.
Content review
Regulatory content — HOS rules, ELD requirements, weigh station procedures, and inspection topics — is reviewed before publication by Sandra Park, a former motor carrier compliance specialist with 8 years of carrier safety management experience. Sandra reviews that regulatory summaries accurately reflect current FMCSA guidance and flags language that overstates what a planning guide can claim.
Sandra's background includes developing compliance training programs for mid-size carriers, conducting internal audits against FMCSA safety standards, and representing carriers in roadside inspection review processes. Her review ensures that the regulatory content on this site is conservative, accurate, and clearly bounded by what a planning guide can and cannot address.
Who it is for
- Drivers who want a cleaner parking and HOS plan before the day gets tight.
- Dispatchers who need realistic appointment, parking, and delay conversations.
- Owner-operators who balance time, fuel, safety, and operating cost.
- Small fleets building simple, repeatable planning routines.
How content is maintained
- Regulatory pages (HOS, ELD, weigh stations) are reviewed quarterly against current FMCSA guidance.
- State and corridor pages are reviewed when official traveler information resources change or when major route conditions shift.
- Weather and safety pages reference National Weather Service education resources, which are updated by NOAA independently.
- Source links are checked on the published review schedule shown in each article's sidebar.
What this site does not do
- It does not provide live parking counts, current fuel prices, or real-time road conditions.
- It does not approve truck routes, low-clearance routes, hazmat routes, or any specific trip.
- It does not give legal advice, compliance certification, or carrier-specific policy guidance.
- It does not replace the driver's ELD, the carrier's safety manual, or current official resources.
Corrections and feedback
If you find an error, a changed regulation, or a source that has moved, please contact the editorial team at [email protected]. Include the page URL, the sentence or issue, and the correct source if available. Confirmed corrections are applied within 30 days.