The Indiana Department of Transportation is looking for ways to track overweight vehicles, partially as a response to the damage caused to an I-65 bridge at Wildcat Creek by an overweight truck, which cost the state and local commerce millions of dollars. What they have hit upon is a pilot program to test out automated ticketing systems that will weigh trucks as they are moving along highways.
Similar to how red-light cameras work, the automated systems use sensors to detect if a truck is overweight and then uses a license plate camera to take a picture of the truck. The camera works in conjunction with multiple “weight-in-motion sensors which are embedded in the road.
The system then determines who the owner is and notifies them of their infraction. Currently INDOT does not have the authority to send a fine, so they will be sending “awareness letters” instead.
“The intent would be to use what we’ve learned from the pilot to ultimately get to a state statute standpoint, where we would be able to … actually send a letter with an accompanying fine,” said Scott Manning, the strategic communications director for INDOT.
While the program is unproven, it’s a pilot that could lead to additional fines in the future and hopes to discourage drivers from hauling overweight loads like the one that destabilized the bridge at Wildcat Creek.
Source: gobytrucknews, nwitimes, insurancejournal, jconline, wndu
Image Source: depositphotos
Unless they are putting these on roads that trucks shouldn’t be on, this is a bad idea.
Many shippers that load me heavy don’t have a scale on site which means I need to drive who knows how many miles to the nearest one, and if I hit one of these mobile weigh camera things, that’s just not fair.
Just another thing to generate revenue from truckers it seems.
I have to agree, just a cash cow in the making, open the scales back up,that are allready payed for, give the ticket to the shipper, they should not be shipping more then 45000 pounds with pallet’s anyway,
This is a 100% correct observation and no doubt one that the Indiana geniuses who came up with and implemented this idea have completely ignored. The situation is already bad enough with weigh stations often situated between drivers and the nearest public scale. Indiana and any other state that plops these onto its roadways needs to treat them as informational alone (for the preservation of their roadways), not as money trees at the expense of truckers’ pocketbooks and driving records.
Ever take it to court and explain to the judge that you had picked up at X and were on your way to the nearest legal public scales to weigh? Then you arent trying to be over weight.. Good chance ticket is thrown. Or have an air gage on your suspension that tells you what your axles weigh?
So true.
Why are you reporting this bridge as damaged by an “overweight truck” when the INDOT report says the bridge was “It all started when crews installed steel piers to widen existing piers as part of the construction to make I-65 three lanes throughout Tippecanoe County. Structural engineers believe sand and water bubbled up from under the bridge pier, causing it to tilt.”? Reference: http://wlfi.com/2015/09/06/i-65-north-reopening-from-lebanon-to-lafayette/
Oh so you do have money.. I thought my snapped leaf spring was a victim of your poor state not being able to
keep up with your crumbling highway 70.
By the way… I’m on my last run as an o/o.
I’m going to park my truck and do local p&ds as an employee. One of the reasons for this change is that
my heart couldn’t take how violently my truck hit the craters on your section of hwy 70. You are the worst.
Bingo!!!! Indiana wont put the revenue generated by these devices back into the roads anyway. Look at the I-80 toll road. It’s a piece of crap which generates millions of dollars, yet no road repairs and their toll plaza’s are filthy. Then they declare bankruptcy and it is sold to a foreign country. What the heck…. Last time I checked all Interstate Highways were Federal Highways. Why didn’t our elite Government step in ad take it over, take money rebuild it and stop the tolls?
someone needs to start making these states accountable like they are the individual drivers of the trucks using the highways!!
*facepalm* reminds me of the old joke:
“Did you CATCH the killer?”
“No but we got a lovely 8×10 of him fleeing the scene!”
Not that I want more harrasent by LEO’s but CAMERAS aren’t COPS! Taking a picture isn’t stopping a law breaker from breaking the law. Even if the objective is keeping overweight vehicles from damaging the road, he’ll still get to his destination and damage more roads & bridges before the letter even goes in the mail!
Good reply! Sounds like they are really not concerned with the damages caused, but looking for another way to create income to stick into their greedy little pockets.
You are totally correct!!! I’ve been loaded with loads that were 2-3000 lbs over gross with no scale on sight.. Then, I had to go 20 miles to nearest scale and back again.. This is so wrong on so many levels.. But I guess if this occurs we drivers will have to refuse heavy loads in Indiana.. 36000 max for me.. Since a lot of times that doesn’t include packaging, pallets, etc… We have to remember that we drivers pay these fines.. And this is just stupid!
I live near the wildcat bridge in Lafayette, Indiana and have read every article and watched news segment aired locally and never once was an over weight truck mentioned. It was contractor according to INDOT investigation. So where this over weight truck propaganda is coming from I have no idea.
This may be fine if they can get these scales to read accurately. I had a truck get pegged for 6000 lbs over gross & nearly had to get someone over to unload some of the freight to make it legal before we could move again, not to mention the fine we were already looking at. After much persuasion, they let us re-weigh & found that we were 2000 lbs UNDER gross. That’s an 8000 lb difference. What are us truckers supposed to do when not given the chance to re-weigh. Even the best of scales are not 100% accurate……..
Fact.
This is where OOIDA needs to step in and present the facts to these idiots.
Are you reading these OOIDA?
Probably really looking for overweight drivers
According to news sources the Wildcat bridge was damaged by ongoing construction. Not an overweight truck. Looks like an excuse for the government to up the theft rate from it’s citizens. If you can’t tax it steal it.
Just another reason for people considering a truck driving career to think twice.I know hauling auto parts from the distribution points ,you never know how much weight they are loading you with, then stuck the drivers with the ticket. Not to mention indiana’s poorly designed and constructed roads that they want to shift the blame away from the state habit of cheaping out on everything.I mean they are just now figuring out that cold patch is a bad deal??
In reality there are probably more 3/4 HD Fords with a GVW of 10,000lbs that exceed the GVW and can easily be seen pulling trailers that put their combined weight way over the the limit that makes them governed by the hours of service rules. Rental companies are famous for doing this to try and avoid DOT regs.
Totally agree. Before I got my cdl I drove a little box truck. They’d load me down with 15k and send me on my merry way. Also they would work me back to back to back 17-20 hour shifts. I got a class a just so I could get a job with a little downtime.
Good point here.
Explain to me how a 1 ton dually can haul 5 cars (three on bottom, two on top at the front of the trailer) and be legal??
REALLY………If some one knows this answer, PLEASE explain???
I haul cars. My 7 trailer (W900L with a 7 car trailer) gets overweight fairly easy on its axles with larger vehicles, yet I see a 1 ton truck pulling a 3 car trailer with a half ton truck in the front (basically in the bed of the 1 ton) and two cars or SUV’s behind it. Do the DOT Cops actually think they are legal when they pass them on the highway?
What happens when you have to deliver to a location that is on a street with these automated systems? I understand putting them on low weight bridges, (less than 15 ton).
your right here. I deliver new cars. I am constantly in violation of weight laws and being on street where the GPS is saying no truck traffic. Yet I HAVE to be on this street to deliver. I know there are plenty of other drivers hauling freight in this same position because I look down the street and see Wal Mart, Grocery stores, and shopping malls.
And just how accurate will these be. We all know a truck must be level and not in motion to get an exact weight. Pre pass can only weigh to a degree of 1000-1500 pounds accuracy. I see a lot of revenue for Indiana in the way of false ticketing. Of course you can spend a few hundred fighting it.
Weigh in motion.. A very accurate weighing system that will not onlyy weigh your axles.. But can give the axle spacings.. Weigh in motion can and does give who ever is reading it a weight of just a handful of pounds difference between a real weight.. And how do i know this? I bought a prototype trailer that the manufacture in California wanted to get this trailer legal in california.. Where along with the state they drove the trailer over the WIM.. At any speed.. They got not only each axle weight.. But also got the distance between the axles for bridge laws… Murray trailer stockton Ca.. So dont think you know it all about WIM scales.. So these scales and cameras.. No problem holding up in court… You dont need to be over weight in the first place.. Dont you know your truck and hoq much load you can put on their? All you do is figure out how much the load weighs and add to your light weight.. 80,000 or less your good.. And why doesnt your company have air gages on your air suspension to give you axle weights?
Yea that’s why weigh stations pre weigh you and then call you scale on a platform. Idiot. You don’t know anything. Ask pre pass how accurate they are are. They’ll tell you what I just said. 1000-1500 pounds. How can they get an accurate weight with 2000 lbs of fuel sloshing around, not to mention the bouncing along the roads. If weigh in motion was that accurate they wouldn’t have platforms at the scale house. Another moron misleading drivers.
Jeff I’m not sure who told you this, but next time you go over a scale at a weigh station at 3 miles an hour, watch the read out if they have one. It jumps all over the place. That’s why if your maxed they will send you around again to re weigh while stopped on the scale. The reason they make you wait on steer and drives is to stablize the fuel in your tanks or liquid you might be hauling. Do you really think WIM is more accurate at 65-70 mph?
So your pretty smart.
Did you use spell check? NOT.
Ok…. say what you are trying to say is true about WIM. So, when you add what the vendor says the weight of the product is (and I know vendors don’t lie, or are just guessing) to your empty weight and know you are under 80,000 gross. How do you know that when they loaded your truck that they did not put most of the heavy pallets on the front, then the light ones on the rear of the trailer? Your gross weight would be correct (if the vendor gave you an accurate weight of the product on the trailer) but you would be overweight on the axle.
I just saying………..
I feel sorry for us heavy haul drivers who paid for the permits to run heavy and still get a ticket from those cameras.
If you have a heavy permit… It will show up when they run your license plate.. Just like your authority.. Insurance and everything else.. So if you are legal.. Why worry.
Jeff you really are an idiot. How long have you been driving? Ask any heavy hauler how many times he’s been held up at a scale because his permits were never entered into the system. These permits aren’t permanent. They are bought sometimes at the last minute due to route changes etc.
Jeff…… you must not be a truck driver. You seem to be too loyal to the other side.
watch and know your susp. gauges–heavy haul here with gauges on truck-jeep main frame & stinger know your weight been doin it for many many years–can’t even fit on most scales and have never had a problem–know your equip.
There suppose to raise the weight limits, but also shippers want longer trailers to load more of their freight. The standard 53 FT trailer now barely makes it around some towns/corners, let alone the weight issue. I agree I was loaded 7000 pds overweight at a shipper in Alabama. Told the shipper, I know my truck and I can feel that its over weight upon pulling away from the their dock. They said oh no everything is weighed coming off their conveyor, I said trust me I will be back. Sure enough down at the certified scale and informing my company, I was paid double to bring it back, my company charged them double,had some serious words with them. Upon returning to them, they couldn’t believe it, I said well here are two certified scale tickets from the CAT Scales. They said come see our scale at the end of our conveyor, after seeing it I noticed a huge issue, I said hey take another look at your system. See anything wrong I told them? To my disbelief they said no!! I said that is set for kg NOT pounds(pds), which is a huge difference. Turns out they ship to European countries, etc that use kg not pounds(pds), thus over wight issues,and they never switched the weight system back to pds. Needless to say they were a bit scared and said if we take 14,000 pds off is that okay?…lol I said sure take off that if your good with that(lol…I ended up with a much lighter load for their stupidity)…I agree with a few other drivers here its the shippers trying to get all they can…..DOT, please fine them, like the other driver(s) say sometimes the nearest certified weigh scales are many miles away, start fining the shipper,not us, and they will get the message real fast!!
Jeff Pearson must work for the company that sells the weigh in motion cameras, the way he’s defending them.
LOL………RIGHT????
This will be used to raise revenue just like the red light cameras.
So in the future I wonder if their going to fine the new so called driverless trucks….LMAO