For many truckers, their cab is quite literally their home away from home. Motel and hotel rooms are expensive, even if you claim them on taxes, so many truckers live out of their own cabs—some on a permanent basis.
When you’re living in a space as cramped as a truck cab, you need to stay organized. The following truck cab accessories help you make the most of your available space while improving your comfort.
Seat Organizers
Seat organizers come in many styles and sizes, allowing you to store small electronics, books, and other items in the dead space behind cab seats. Under-seat storage bins also help maximize available space, although you probably want to keep commonly used items in a backseat organizer for easier access.
Bedding and Pillows
Anyone who’s ever spent the night in the back of a tractor cab knows the importance of a good quality mattress. Buy the best you can afford. The same goes for pillow quality, which can make the difference between a restful night’s sleep and insomnia.
Traditionally, trucker bedsheets have been, not to put too fine a point on it, horrible. They were scratchy, thin, and had the upper and lower sheets sewn together. Fortunately you can now buy bedsheets with elasticized lower sheets specially designed for in-cab mattresses.
During the winter, consider a 12-volt heated blanket that plugs right into your cigarette lighter. A warm blanket makes for a better night’s sleep, and if you’re ever stranded on a winter road, could even save your life.
12-Volt Cooking Accessories
Eating a steady diet of diner chow really adds up—both on your expense account and around your waistline. No list of truck cab accessories is complete without mentioning a host of 12-volt cooking tools available for truckers, from mini fridges to sandwich makers, sauce pans, grills, and small portable ovens.
Inverters
The cab’s cigarette lighter might be suitable for heating up breakfast or charging a cell-phone, but what about appliances and electronics designed for AC current? An inverter switches your truck battery’s DC current into AC for running a range of electronics. While you can buy inverters to plug into the cigarette lighter, models that connect directly to the truck battery offer more power for larger devices.