Gross weight, Axle weight & Scales... what would you do?

i would have complained they loaded me too light, ya know that whole paid by weight deal, let alone my legal gross of 96k but i wouldn't think twice about 300 over gross and only portable scales to be worried about. 300lbs around here would be nothing. i got scaled on a portable one time and was 400 over gross and 600 over on a axle group the cop thanked me for trying to keep it legal and sent me on my way.

 

I've rolled 300lbs over gross before. With spread axle I was techically legal on all axles... yet scaled 80,320 lbs. Never sweated it.. rolled into 2 different scales, 1 in Pa the other in Md. Both paused me for a moment.. I guess to decide to ding me or not. Ended up with green light.

I personally dont sweat it until its over 500lbs. 80,500+ and I would probably have something removed or depending on location, conditions, and how close to the end of the month for womens menstral cycle.. then decide to just run it or not. But 100 - 300lbs over.. meh. Been lucky so far.. no one has ever hassled me over it.



Hurst

 

I won't ever carry anything over weight without permits. If it's over weight, somethings coming off.

 

My last one was in a mixer, in New York.
Cop pulled me over and checked bills. He was surprised I had 12 yards of concrete in a belt truck (mixer with conveyor to offload at a distance).
He asked me what the truck weighted and I told him I had no idea, since we did not have a scale at the yard where I had just rolled out and we never scaled anything.

He brought me to a state yard up the street and weighed my truck. We had a permanent permit but that only got us up some, no enough. I found out that day that my truck could only legally haul 6 yards of concrete. I was 16,000 over gross, also over axle and over permit. So we got all the tickets.
The owner of the company went to court on any and every ticket, so we went on this one as well. We were looking at around 16k in fines for all tickets.
The judge had never seen a weight ticket, and we won her over. She dropped 2 of the tickets and did the third at less than the minimum. So total fine was 285 dollars.

 

For me I don't run more than 200lbs over gross or on the drives or tandems. You never know when you will run into an ahole cop looking to pop ya for anything he can find. Most DOT guys are okay with 200-300lbs over but maybe their having a bad day and then you come along.

 

Here in pa and in md they give you 3% when using portables meaning gross 82400 and axles 35000.300 pds over and no fixed scale i wouldve ran it without even thinking about it.

 

Portable scales are accurate, but only on level ground. Very few roads are actually perfectly flat so you get a variance...

 

all but 6. http://www.ooida.com/EducationTools/Info/weight-exemptions.asp

 

i'm with stexan and socal. i would have just rolled that 300 pounds. you lose 7 1/2 pounds for every 6 miles anyways. unless your stop and go. then it's less miles. but it beats spending however many hours you spent trying to make the load legal.

your allowed 12,400 on the steers. (my truck's 5th wheel doesn't have any rail left to slide back further, it weighs 12.4 on the steers) i would have put the weight on the steers. most trucks are set up with tanks closer to the front. you burn off 2 pounds on the steer for every 1 pound on the drive. basically speaking. put the weight on the steers, drives and trailer are legal. and you'll lose the weight as your driving down the road. with legal weight axles getting lighter on your total gross.

 

Just to piggyback on what STexan was saying, I have spent some time weighing trucks in ND as a truck regulatory deputy sheriff. Speaking only for ND.... There was no difference in whether your 300 lbs over was distributed differently or not. 300 lbs over was 300 lbs over. On this weight I just gave the driver a verbal warning and sent him/her on his way. My line in the sand was over 500 lbs. But like I said earlier, I can only speak for ND. Hope this helps.