Placarded Tanker Used Empty Lane at Weigh Station

Related: What is the penalty (in any state) for bypassing an OPEN scale when the ramp is full?

(Yes, I know TN has signs to bypass when full, so obviously I'm not asking about TN.)

 

Who cares !

 

The law doesn't consider the HazMat trailer loaded after all of the product is delivered. The law simply states placards stay on until it is washed out. All laws are not constantly harmonized in light of new laws or changing situation. One law say what it says another law says what it says. They don't have to make sense and common sense isn't the final judge of their meaning. Think of each law having a history, starting before it was passed, and then rulings from judges in a particular lawsuit, etc. The lawyers & judges fight over each word and each situation & definition are complicated because in situation A it was ruled, appealed, and then upheld or overturned it was determined it meant exactly this.

Law School would be about 1 or 2 semesters long if laws meant what the dictionary definition of each word meant and then logic and common sense smoothed out the rough edges. Law school is 3 years because there is a lot more than a dictionary & a logic class to know.

 

This also...
Only need one strap unless it weighs over 1,100 lbs and is less than 5' in length or for anything over over 5' in length.

 

Perhaps the idea is that the tanker, even though freight - empty, was still containing a hazardous substance and should have driven through loaded lane so that a DOT inspector could have had a better opportunity to see it and call it for an inspection for the sake of public safety.
One might think that the loaded and empty lane separation is solely for the purpose of a better traffic management and it should not have anything to do with making a vehicle better exposed to a scale window.

I must confess that once in CA I had a dozen bags of bird food rejected and decided to use an empty lane. I was not quite empty but not quite loaded either. I am not sure if I did the correct thing or not but to tell you the truth I don't have any qualms about it.

 

I went over the Grapevine scales in an mt trailer with the placards still on once. Forgot to take them off. I got red lighted and when I got out of the truck I saw why right away. DOH, so I took them off and he told me to have a nice day.

 

If it was a anything other then a tanker then yes, if it's a tanker you have to run the placards until you have a certified washout with paperwork to prove on you. And with a empty placarded trailer you can go through the empty lane. Very familiar with that scale as I live near it and personally know the supervisor there.

 

Yeah it was a reefer van. I was working for IWX at the time. The one and only time I forgot to take off the placards.

 

Both of those are not law. No Bol required for personal possessions. Two straps re required of the load is over 5k’ in length or 500kg in weight, otherwise 1 is perfectly legal.

either the driver was lying to you or didn’t know the regulations.

 

I’d say the dot officer in NC didn’t know regulations, I seen his ticket.