Get FinancingSleeper Cab Innovations
If your job is to drive across the country hauling freight at all hours of the day and night, then you want to be comfortable in your truck. It’s not just a matter of having vehicle controls in an easier reach position, having more space in the cab (although that certainly does help), and a comfortable seat. You actually need to be able to take a break at a rest stop, hop in the back of your sleeper cab, and get a good night’s sleep before getting back at it the next morning.
Fortunately, truck manufacturers are well aware that keeping drivers comfortable is one of the best ways to ensure productivity. And while it used to be that a truck might have the bare minimum of a bed and a bit of storage space for a driver’s belongings, things have changed considerably over the past few years to make a truck feel like a home away from home. Much of this improvement has come in the form of the amenities included in the sleeper cab as well as available add-on features to help make that space your own.
Getting Comfortable
Aside from features you’d expect, like temperature control, perhaps one of the biggest changes you’ll find in sleeper cabs today is one of the simplest, and that is making the bed itself bigger and more comfortable. Truck manufacturers have gotten really good at maximizing the space within a sleeper cab to the point where you can fit a large mattress inside that folds back up into the wall to maximize space when the bed is not in use. (There are even taller cabs that have a built-in bunk that comes in handy for a team driver or the occasional passenger but that serves as extra storage space on solo runs.)
Because these beds tend to fold up, some trucks, like Freightliner’s new Cascadia, can actually have full-on seating areas like you might see in a camper or mobile home where there’s a table and two chairs or two benches. The table itself can serve as a desk for getting through paperwork or checking in via a laptop while away from headquarters. The ultimate goal of these new truck designs is to make the driver comfortable while he’s operating the truck, working away from the driver’s seat, and, of course, while sleeping.
Space & Convenience
In addition to modern sleeper cabs simply being more comfortable, they are also much more spacious, which means you can pack more amenities in than ever before. For example, it used to be that a trucker had to rely on roadside cafes and diners for a meal, but larger cabs (such as those you’ll find in the Kenworth W900 and Peterbilt 587, for instance) have more space and power to support refrigerators, microwaves, and more for storing and preparing food. Plus, with many trucks coming with power inverters and even traditional power outlets, you can plug in almost any device you can imagine and run it on the truck’s battery power.
Larger cabs also leave more room for feeling like you’re at home. You can have televisions with Blu-ray players and other devices connected to them for getting some entertainment breaks on long trips. Some sleeper cabs also come with good-sized closets built in so you can store clothes and other items and maximize the actual living space within the vehicle. The whole idea is to essentially make the sleeper compartment act as a mini camper so that regardless of where you are in the country, or the world, you have a comfortable place to come back to and recharge your batteries.
