Should I go through the Loaded or Empty scale lane?

Cordelia? It's a training scale. Play by the rules.

 

Back in the day I picked up a loaded wagon down on the Mexican border. I think it was at Calexico, CA. Can’t remember exactly because we had another place we picked up down there. Anyways, the guy handed me a seal and I went and looked in there before putting it on. There was 1 box, about 12x12x12 Just sorta throw’d in there. I went back in and asked the guy where was the freight? He says it’s that box up in the nose. Ok. I wondered, the bills said the weight was 5lbs, I thought that was a mistake. No mistake. It went to DeKalb, IL. It was a plastic tool box, in a box. I’ve always wondered what was in the tool box. Anyways, my point was, I hit every scale on the way up there, just in case they pulled me round back and wanted to see my paperwork. Just sayin’.

 

Don’t almost scales in the USA have drive by weight before the scales ?

Pretty sure everyone I’ve been on so far has that. ( the 2 metal plates on the road that weigh you in motion )

If you cross that and you have no weight on they already know you’re empty so IMO take the empty lane.

 

No t

hey are not going to know, and I have never had a CHP in the scales open up my trailer to see if I was truly empty, But they could. So I personally would not although the odds are you'd be fine using the empty, bottomline your gamble.
When I was driving for Pepsi I would take store returns trough the empty lane in Tehachapi, But I also had stopped and ask for the scale masters opinion, The guy who normally worked there the time I was going thru was good with the returns being empty, but by his own words its the judgement of the individual officer, So at best its a crap shoot.

 

A bunch have the X-ray machines now. Florida pulled me over, got up and crawled all over my load. Said it looked suspicious because of the different heights of the pallets. They were nice about it, gave me a new seal, and load inspection report, for consignee.

 

8 years out of my last load I am not all that up on the current things going on in the scales across the US. When I was driving and came upon a scale with these loaded and unloaded lanes I almost always went by my weight. I have been fully loaded and the entire load not weigh much over 15K. MOST of the time I have found if you take a quick look at the parking you can get a general idea of what is going on. If you see 4 or 5 DOT vehicles most likely they are inspecting and I would advise staying In the proper lane that applies to you. However, if you don't see signs of inspections most likely they are just "weighing wagons" and they want you through there ASAP. If you are empty, nearly so, or hauling a very light load just use the unloaded lane and vamoose! The time of day also has a lot to do with this as well.

Yes, and there are many such scales all across the US. Those I-75 scales in Georgia between Atlanta and Macon are literally within sight of the Georgia Law Enforcement training facility. Everything from State Troopers to Prison Correctional officers is trained there. On that note let me reveal something I have seen at one of the I-75 scales in Kentucky. I can't remember if it was the northernmost scales are the ones toward the south. I just remember watching a van full of young freshly trained DOT officers get out and start stopping drivers. ANY scale at any time can be deployed as a training scale.

This leads me to a funny thing that happened to me on the I-85 NC scale Northbound near Charlotte. I was stopped on the scale by an officer that asked me to pull in. The first thing he said was he was sorry, but one of the big bosses was in the scale house and he just needed to get out. promised me a clean inspection if nothing serious was found wrong. I took the $25 I got for that clean inspection and ate steak!

 

This is fine abd dandy, but you have to have the Police Officer that broke the seal and the one who resealed it sign the BOL including seal numbers.