Overweight loads

In Alabama you are legal grossing 80,000lbs on a federal interstate. In Alabama your are legal grossing 88,000lbs on a state road.
So all the gloom,doom and despair will happen on a interstate but not a state road?
It's all about the money, not safety. Building roads cheaper and not having to spend as much for road repair.
Today's trucks are built and can be built to handle much more weight, but you need drivers who actually know what they are doing.

 

Are you saying you bought 40,620 pounds of fuel? Where, did you put it??

You have to know how to handle your paper trails. Overweight receipts are for screwing the company, legal receipts are for the DOT. Don't get them backwards or you get in trouble.

 

Nope, that's not me, just wish it was. I hauled the re-bar for the foundation on those big wind farms. This was from a huge wind farm in Stetson Mountain in Maine. 6 miles of dirt road through the mountains, it was beautiful!

 

No, permit is for 120,000. Anything over 120,000 gross or more than 2,000lbs over an axle and they void the permit. So 120,620 is 40,620 over the 80k they cut you back to.

Also a pry bar beside the seat is great for lifting the edge of the scales to stamp a legal weigh ticket. Photoshop is also handy for editing bills and it's also nice to carry spare tags with edited weights for the items your hauling.

It's all a game, it's just who's better at playing it. Oh and if anyone feels the need to throw in the "it's not a game when your in an accident" crap, keep it to yourself. Bending the rules has been going on since the beginning of time and it doesn't matter if your legal or not if your in an accident they WILL find something to get you for, don't kid yourself into believing otherwise. This isn't my first rodeo.

 

I drive a 2004 KW 800 with a 475 cat. As far as I can tell it has no modifications to the braking system.

I pull a set of Super B's filled with propane. Loaded I weigh somewhere in the neighbourhood of 137,000 pounds. Truck stops just fine, takes a bit, but stops just fine.

The weight limits are not about the safety of the trucks, but the wear and tear on the roads. I haul that much weight because of the axles. Trouble is when there are more than 3 axles together and you turn it causes road damage.

The truck I drive handles the weight wonderfully. I don't drive like a moron and it is just fine. Truck is governed at 105 kmh, but I try not to go over 100 unless I am going down a hill. Rolled her up to about 115 yesterday going down a grade.

I also came over a hill and right into a Police Ride check. Speed limit on the secondary highway was 80 and I hit the brakes pretty hard, but stopped in plenty of time.



Keep it legal and you won't ever have anything to worry about. But I do understand how you get pressured into running illegal. The pressure comes from other drivers. If we all refused to run over hours, over weight, or out of service trucks, there would not be the problem. But we all do it to each other. Don't blame the dispatcher, he would not expect you to do it if the other guy didn't do it all the time.

 

Thanks Jfaulk99, you made me laugh out loud! I never tried the pry-bar bit, but I have put just one tread of a tire in the edge to do the same.

I understand it's just a game. Like, we get radar detectors, they get laser, we get laser detectors, they outlaw detectors and so on....

I also know the trucks can haul it. Like I said, I drove a straight dump-truck and hauled over 90,000 regularly, it stopped and took off WAAAYYY faster and safer than the last 2005 Mack POS I drove with only 80,000 on it!!!!
I also hauled demolition on a live floor, well over 150,000 with an antique Mack Super-Liner, and it handled it just fine. I was getting $16/hour and didn't care how much time I spent going around scales. Most of my runs were under 75 miles and about 25 of that was just dodging scales and anyplace where the DOT liked to hang out!

I just feel that if I don't have to run illegal, why do it and give them just one more thing to use against me.
Also, the companies I worked for NEVER paid me more to run more weight, and there was no guarantees that they'd pay the fines if I got stopped, even if they said they would. They also didn't pay me the extra miles to go around the scales, and all the additional time that it takes to do that. Also, I never got paid for all the time wasted in the scales waiting for my ticket, or for another truck to take some of my load.

If I was an owner-operator and got paid by the load, sure, I'd probably run overloaded most of the time, and I'd make sure my truck was up to the challenge.
But if I'm running a POS company truck, that has trouble stopping when it's empty (scary but true fact), and not making any extra bucks to do it, I'm not running illegal! Not overweight and I won't fudge the logs anymore either. It just doesn't pay. If they don't like it, I'll go someplace else.

Bottom line:
O.O.: I'd weigh out the possible additional cost against the additional money.
Company: No way, not even 20 pounds over on an axle. Give them and inch and.... Once the company figures out you won't run illegal, they'll leave you alone or fire you, then go work for a better company.

 

How do you unload the pup, hydraulic hoses from the tractor ?

 

There is a hose that I attach to unload the pup.

 

do you haul that propane year-round?

 

Nope, it is only cold here in the winter.