Right weigh onboarding scales?

I wonder who take’s the blame & pays the ticket when they get a over weight ticket
I could see the driver says it’s faulty equipment the company should pay
I can see the company saying. We’re not paying it we have scales on our trucks not or problem you don’t know how to utilize them

 

I would think that just having it on the drives would be all you need; fuel-up, then move as much weight as you can onto the drives (for traction..), and the trailer will take care of itself. Unless the shipper lied about how much they loaded, in which case, any overweight ticket should be on their dime..... Seems like having it on the drives only will take care of better than 99% of all loads successfully...

 

Unfortunately the weight of your rig is on you, not your shipper.

 

Well, most DECENT companies will back you up in cases like this......eventually.

 

They need to be calibrated, and the way most drivers treat trailers they don’t stay calibrated

a regular air PSI guage into the bags is like $15 and will let you know if your close or not, if you stay to hooked the same trailer you’ll know what psi you have per pound and can just do the math

 

If you have a basic axle load gauge you can figure it out pretty easy. Example on my truck 34,000 lbs is 59 psi so I know each psi is roughly 576 lbs. I check it on flat ground with full air pressure I gently roll to a stop and read gauge .. if you know your empty weight and load weight you can estimate trailer fairly close.

 

Yeah, I once had a shipper claim they loaded me with 43k, when in actuality they loaded me with 49k. Caltrans had words with me at the Sacramento scales; their were NO CAT scales I knew of between Stockton and that scale, and in fact, I was planning on scaling-out at the next exit. They let me slide my tandems, gave me a ticket, and let me leave with only 20 lbs leeway on both the drives and the trailers; with only half-full fuel tanks! It was a CA to NJ load, so I had to stop at EVERY fuel stop my company had for a half-fill. Climbing the Rockies with that old 300hp Cummins and a 9-sp while tipping the scales at 79,960 lbs was an experience....

So, yeah, the company charged-back the shipper.

 

I would of just filled it and dusted/dodged scales/ran at night, stopping annoys me