How come NO ONE talks about the importance of weight scales?

Two weeks was all it was when I went through...I don't know that I could have kept my sanity through a third week. Hell, I was bored out of my mind and couldn't wait to get out of there by the end of the first week. Tested the first day the school would let me, passed, and never looked back.

They don't have to be on the truck until March 1...so he's got another week and a half before it'll become an issue for him.

 

I didn't get to reading all the pages yet...

But I was under the impression that it is legal to drive to the "nearest" scale to check weights.

But the nearest scale means nearest, which is not always in the direction your load is headed. And sometimes quite a distance... and miles the company may not pay you!

Mikeeee

 

you can go to scale the load but at the same time if you are over youre still illegal if they pop up with portables so then you got a 50/50 chance of getting to scale before the scale

 

Great info for new drivers.

Additionally I have noticed that an imbalanced trailer will give a "kick" on the seat back when going over a significant bump in the road. I get a bit of a whiplash affect when either the tandems or drives are considerably heavier.

Mikeeee

 

Man I want to thank everybody for their input on this very important subject in trucking. There are some terms that are foreign to me but I am eager to learn them. I start late this week or sometime in the next week with my trainer, from what I am reading this will help me out a lot. I saw something in this forum that I had questions about and I will quote it here in the next hour. Like I said thanks everybody.

 

You lost me right here lol, so in each trailer there are numbered sections I am assuming?

 

No. They are referring to pallet counts.

The following link will provide a tutorial with illustrations and explanations;

http://www.inventoryops.com/trailerloading.htm

 

well i went to truck driving school ( no i am not bragging)...the CDL had just come into effect and i didnt know anyone.. to teach me how to drive. i went from Jan.1 of 1991 thru March 14 1991....and they had become more strict on just lettin ya hop into a truck and learn as ya go...there is no way that a school can teach you everything there is to know about trucking...its a hands on thing. we trained in the snow, in the mountains and pulled doubles sometimes too (which i thought was TOTALLY crazy) in Colorado.....but the point is, even going that long, you cant know everything or even a 1/4 really....they did however discuss weight distribution, logs, BOL's basic mechanics, Fed. Regs etc. but most of that was like a foreign language, because i had no knowledge of trucks other than i wanted to drive one! It boils down to what I said earlier, it is kind of hands on...you learn as you go, but you cant just sit back and say, "they didnt teach me that".....you need to figure out the right / legal way to do things....let your Federal Motor Carriers Safety Regulations book, be your down time reading material (yes i am serious)...i did it....look thru the index or just thumb thru it, until you come across something you dont know....or pick a section at a time and read it....you are required to know those rules anyway....so make yourself familiar with them..(altho it doesnt really cover weight dist. you can learn other things you need to know).as soon as you can (yeah i know a lot of you do drop and hook) go to a scale with an empty trailer and scale out, see what your empty weight is...(just remember if you switch between dry van and reefers, obviously the weight will be more with the reefer) watch them load you, ask if ths BOL includes pallet weight or is it just product weight, in time you will get to know what and how to load...and how much you can load...and will get to know how to read your air gauge (if your truck has one)...but in the meantime, it is still your responsibility to make sure you are legal.

 

Not numbered, no. Just think of the nose as row 1, and count back. You'll find most palletized loads are 2000-2500 lbs. yielding 18-22 pallets per load. To properly distribute the load while maintaining proper kingpin to axle spacing, you have to spread your load over those 11 rows. 22 can be just doubled in, obviously. Less than 22 you have to have single pallet rows.

 

Thanks that information is very useful and I will be putting it in my paperwork folder.