Another seemingly silly question,,,weigh stations

That "speed plate" as you call it is actually a weight in motion device, you get weighed without slowing down.

I would say appearance is the number one reason for getting inspected. I had a headlight out at dawn and was still allowed to continue on. He looked over my truck, said "Did you know you got a headlight out?" I said, "I will get it fixed at the next truck stop." And I was waved on thru. I dont keep anything on my dash, I am a Nazi about stuff on the dash.

 

Who pays for the "service" of getting weighed..the driver or the company?

 

Those weigh stations are a federal requirement, and states put them in because they have to. If they don't put them in, there is a penalty in terms of highway revenue.
Some states spent so much money in those weigh stations that they have shut down their state DOT inspection teams for the most part. Tennessee used to have a huge DOT team that inspected thousands of trucks a year. Same with Arkansas. No more. Most weigh stations in Tennessee are rarely used.
It's a numbers game. Tennessee reports that they weighed 10.8 million trucks last year. I'm betting that most of them were on that I40 to I81 route.

 

They say pull around back grab the vaseline and bend over on your way in the door.

 

I've always said just put up a truck toll booth. They can still rape us, but we won't have to stop for them to do it.

 

Nevada doesn't have permenant weigh stations. Also most scalehouses are near statelines or where a lot of frieght comes from. You or the company pays for Prepass. One trick I've learned is if you are coming up on a scale be the 4th or 5th in line if you can. This will reduce your chance of getting pulled in greatly. It also depends if its a "training day" or how bored the scalehouse personnel are.