Once we get home I do everything possible to avoid sitting in the drivers seat. The stress of driving our personal vehicles has me worn out by the time I reach my destination. Luckily I usually drive to the smaller town of Troy, MO and not into the much larger town of Saint Louis, MO. Going into St. Louis and getting into traffic has my shoulders getting tense and by the time I get home after a few hours I am done in.
For someone who enjoys spending ten hours plus behind the wheel of a Cascadia or more everyday I find it funny that I do everything I can to not drive when at home. We have a pickup as well as an older convertible and neither one of them have the comforts or safety features I enjoy in the truck.
First and foremost when driving the Cascadia I can SEE! The height of the truck, the windshield, the position of the seats as well as the mirrors I can see over the cars and down the road. When in traffic this is a valuable tool as I know before hand when I need to change lanes if some thing is happening on the shoulder or someone is trying to merge onto the roadway. The large mirrors on the truck are easily adjustable to fit how I like to position my seat in the truck for maximum visibility.
The seat adjusts to the height I like to sit and as close to the peddles as I prefer and then I can adjust the steering wheel. It is funny how many times I get into our pickup and try to adjust the steering wheel. The car does have an adjustable steering wheel and I like that feature.
Our Cascadia has adaptive cruise and after I fine-tuned my skills to work with this enhancement to the truck we get along great. We move through traffic like a well-oiled machine not causing waves only going with the flow. Driving the truck has become second nature, as I know how she is going to respond when vehicles cross in front of us to close, when vehicles come over into our lane to close, and the best part of how our truck will handle the mountains.
When we pull into a truck stop our rearview camera as well as the mirrors make it easy to back into a dock or a parking space. The sloped hood over our DD13 gives me great visibility when pulling up to a gate to activate the opening sensor or pulling into a parking spot. I have found when I park our personal vehicles I very rarely back into a spot and when I nose in I am usually three to four foot from the curb. Talk about embarrassing when I walk back to the car and realize I am nowhere near the curb.
We also had Lane Departure Warning System (LDWS) installed in our truck as we have had in the last two trucks. Some find the LDWS to be aggravating and I find the argument with out basis as the only time the LDWS goes off is when someone is crossing over a lane and not using their turn signals. It is pretty simple to forget you have a LDWS - Stay in your lane - Use turn signals when changing lanes.
The orange seat belts are comfortable and the air ride seats help to take any bumps out of the road. The vehicles at home are not air ride and neither of them ride as smoothly as the Cascadia. The curved dash put everything at my fingertips with the vents aimed perfectly to keep me warm or cool.
It is with great pleasure that I climb up into our trucks driver seat to head out on the road to pickup or deliver that next load. I can forget about the stress of driving our personal vehicles and enjoy driving our beautiful Cascadia.