Are Scale Houses getting tougher to deal with?

ive been driving 3 years and never been pulled in the back scale houses are only a nightmare for people who know their over wheight and cant fix it and drivers who have terrible trucks

 

Couple of weeks ago I pulled an overwidth from DE to QC. As soon as I cleared Canadian customs, I pulled off to the shoulder to remove my OVERSIZE LOAD banners and replace them with the "D" banners that are required in QC Then I was on my way. The guys in the scale watched me swap the signs and turned the scale house lights on an pulled me in.

May I see your permit?
Sure.
OK. Looks good. Do you know why we pulled you in?
No.
You forgot to turn your strobes back on.
OH NO!
Turn them on and you're OK to go.

First time I've been across a QC scale without a $400 ticket. I guess I was due.

 

I ve had a AL DOT officer ask for a copy of my CAT Scale ticket and called the truck stop (New Albany, MS Pilot) and checked my log and the time stamp on the scale ticket to make sure everything matched

 

what do you pull

 

The only time I've been inspected was in MS and that was twice in my 2 years of driving. My first day out I got inspected at the Iuka, MS scales. No big deal. The guy was real nice and I told him it was my first day so he explained what he was going to do and what I need to do and he did the inspection and sent me on my way. Almost 1 year to the day later, I was southbound on 45 in Corinth, MS and as I was crossing the scales, someone shined a flashlight in my eyes from the back parking lot and the officer motioned me back. I sat there for 5 minutes and he never came back out so I got all my paperwork and went it. He said I need to see your license, insurance, and cab card. I handed them to him, he glanced at them, and sent me on my way.

I haven't been pulled in to any of the TX inspection stations yet but when I worked in our shop for 2 years, it was an every day occurrence to have write-ups sent to the shop over BS stuff. It got so bad that the owner of our company, the guy that is over all the drivers, and the VP of our shop flew down to Los Indios to get everything straightened out because some of the things they were writing drivers for weren't in the book of possible violations. The were told by the officer, "It is our job to INTERPRET the laws. I may read the law this way and write you a ticket. The next officer in line may read the law and not write a ticket. That is the way this works". I don't see where there is room for any interpretation and apparently neither did the owner. They filed some paperwork with some branch of government and got about 90% of them dropped. After that, now we never get violations down there any more.

 

It's just getting ridiculous!

 

Scales? What are those? The routes I run don't have any of those. I never understood the logic behind rolling into a bear den where you KNOW they are hanging out just to play Russian Roulette with the DOT. Just because your truck is clean or fairly new doesn't mean they won't find anything wrong with it...could be a brand new truck just off the line with all of 25 miles on the odometer and if the officer looks hard enough he can find something, either with the truck, or your paperwork, or whatever else they feel like finding.

Personally, I plan my routes to follow roads that don't have permanent scales. If a DOT officer runs across me and decides to pull me over and inspect me, so be it. I try to keep my truck up to par and my paperwork in order, so I don't worry about it...at least they had to work to find me.

 

New SB scale in OK I-35 S of Ks line is used on occasion for training new scale officers . As a rule They don't mind if you go in to observe them in how they do the job an ask questions.. Just park go in and ask. You might just get some real info. I have pre pass so I dont get to visit them often. These officials that build the scales do think they need to make up the cost and build a reputation to justify the need to build it so inspections are a bit more frequent.