60' load on 48' flatbed.

if that were the case. then why is 34 the standard for tandems and 40 the standard for spread????

when you ask about O/W permits. they don't say as long as you don't exceed the tire rating. instead, they say as long as you don't exceed axle weight.

but there's also bridge weight. even though i could max out to 86. 84 is the bridgeweight. 72 between front drive axle and rear most spread axle. plus 12 on the steers. on a 48 flat trailer. a 53 flat trailer has a higher bridge.

 

I suppose it has to do with spreading the weight over a larger distance but I've never asked the DOT that question so I don't know and I don't care. Why does western Canada take the opposite approach and reduce the allowable weight for spreads? Why is the sky blue? Who freaking knows what the DOT thinks. It's not even relevant to this discussion anyway.

Wrong again. I don't know who "they" are in your world, but after filling out many, many, many applications, I can tell you that my permit service does not even ask for the axle rating. My permit service only asks for the tire size and rating

Yes, yes we all know about bridge laws but again.....irrelevant.

This discussion between you, me and a couple of others that have chimed in is about how much weight you can put on a 121 inch spread. You stated (and I quote) "40,000 PERIOD", which is absolutely, 100% FALSE. I suggested that your statement was slightly misleading because, at least in some states, I have permitted in excess of 40,000 lbs.

How do you "know" that spreads cannot be permitted in excess of 40,000 lbs?
Is this what someone told you or did you actually apply for a permit and have it denied?
If it was denied, was it a divisible load?
If it was non divisible, what state or states denied the permit?

 

Just for the sake of discussion, I'll throw it out there that North Carolina permits automatically allow 25k on a single axle and 50k on a tandem, even on an otherwise legal-weight load, whether it's divisible or not. By contrast, in neighboring Tennessee, it apparently takes an act of Congress signed by the Pope to get a permit over 20k per axle (that's hearsay, I've never needed or tried to get an over 20k/axle permit in TN).

 

Funny, here in FL we can have 44,000 on a spread OR tandem with no permit. If you look in the front of your atlas it has all that good stuff.

 

Yeah, I wish something like that was more universal, I feel bad for the door slammers that have to get that perfect 34-34-12 balance. NC allows 38k on closed tandems as long as the truck+trailer tandems aren't over 68k, which I think would've been pretty reasonable to implement nationwide back when they had the chance. Ride quality aside, I'd personally rather have a closed tandem over a spread if it was practical for me. Maybe we should go at it from a pollution standpoint and introduce the "Rubber waste reduction act of 2013."