Got my first Overweight ticket....

just curious if you could use that as a defense if you took it to court to fight a ticket

 

Might be a good idea while being asked a tricky trick question by a money hunger officer. If I ever have to deal with another cop who asks me a belligerent or unnecessary question I might will have to respond with "Sir, I don't want to say anything that may be incriminating to myself so I will choose exercise my 5th amendment right to not say anything incriminating against myself" and then nod my head .

 

I don't know, but I bet "the 5th" is limited to criminal cases.

 

Don't know if it is legal but I can believe you would be walking for a while after your license were suspended seeing how it is a privilege and all.

 

You'd be placed OOS for a while. A wrecker would be called (you would be billed for the tow) to move your truck to the scale to be weighed. Another officer (or the wrecker driver, who is billing YOU by the hour) would turn the lights on & off and apply the brakes if you refused to do it yourself, meanwhile the officer is going to look EXTRA CLOSE and make sure you've got all of your i's dotted and t's crossed and anything even SLIGHTLY questionable will be a citation. Want to be difficult? They'll show you the meaning of the word. You are engaged in interstate commerce, and they have the right to inspect your truck to ensure compliance with the regulations. You have the right to remain silent, but that won't prevent them from doing their job...it'll only hurt you more. On the plus side, your wallet will be significantly lighter.

 

I get overweight tickets regularly. The Georgia diesel bear told me that nearly all tickets that go to court are thrown out but most just pay them. I saw a memo on the wall saying we need to start loading trucks better. Overweight tickets were over $35,000 last week company wide.

 

I have a question... I am in the waste hauling part of industry they see's these conveyor belts, grinders, trommels etc... They are all towable machines which set axles.. So my question is how are you suppose to fix the overweight axle if these things are built from the factory with these setups... It's like you can attach a extra dolly to the thing... Some of these machines are heavy suckers.... I figure they are built from factory to be legal on the axle setup...

Sure I guess you can tow them around on RGN's but these things are always towed to the locations... The only ones I see on RGN's is track machines that are not equipped with axles and tires nor fifth pins... I think there should be an exemption when towing things like this due to them being made from the factory likes.. It's not like loading a flatbed where you are responsible for proper placement of your load to axle out correctly..

Kind of reminds me of being told a while back that these 50, 80, 100 ton mobile cranes are over on axles and they usually drive around the scales.... Well they come from the factory like that, they have huge gigantic wheels and usually have 9 or more axles... Even have the crane attached to a dolly in some cases... Doesn't make sense..

 

Just like cnsper says, you buy a permit. States typically have an annual permit for mobile cranes. cnspers problem with his towaway unit is how that particular state rates tires. They go by the inch instead of manufacturers rating. So while those tires on that unit were perfectly legal in other states, they weren't in that particular state.