Gross vehicle weight as company driver

That's just foolish. After you scale once or twice you should know what your truck weighs. I would say scale any load that might come within 10 thousand pounds of 80,000lbs. If it's convenient and right there then there's no problem in scaling your load but if you have to drive around looking for a scale I would trust the BOL if it's 10K under.

 

When I pulled a van I would scale if the load was around 30,000 When I got my flatbed spread axle I scaled it once for an empty weight full of fuel. That was the last time I paid to scale. Most places I load scale me in for lumber or steel. I know I can center load 50,100 lbs and be OK.

 

for a company drive scalling every load isnt foolish remember he gets that money back at the end of the week and if he keeps the driver copy he can give it to the tax man at the end of the year and also just because your invoice said that its only 20k lb dont mean jack invoice weights are wrong all the time they forget blue chep pallets can weight 150 lb each and if the invoice only has the weight for just the product you can end up with a problem and then there are the shipers who just quess how much the load weighs never assume that the invoice shiping weight is correct always thing its off and make sure

 

After learning my specific truck I would not scale unless it was 40K or above.. If I knew what I was hauling then I would also not scale because I already knew what hole to put it in...

As a noob Again I suggest scaling anything over 32K till you are comfortable..

 

overweight and poorly distributed loads are very common. Companies somehow place the blame on drivers for the tickets, although, IDK anymore, I dont worry about weight, not a scale in sight for me...


K

 

As a general rule, do not let a shipper exceed 1000 pounds per foot of trailer. I'm not saying 53,000 lbs on a 53 foot trailer! Watch them load and pay attention, if the pallets weight 2,500 pounds each, and they load them side by side from the nose back, you'll be heavy on the drives and unable to slide enough to fix it. Do not allow the shipper to load more than 1,000 pounds per foot of trailer.
I've been driving 31 years, and this passed Friday I loaded out of Westfield Massachusetts, the load was suppossed to be 43,200 pounds, on 18 pallets, I had the forklift operator load six pallets doubled, two single, a pair doubled, two single, and six doubled. 44 feet of trailer. I drove to Canaan New York and scaled the truck and was over 80,000 gross. I had to return to the shipper to have a pallet removed. The shipper said they would unload and reload, stretching the load out.
I told them I was over gross and they had to cut one pallet.
They insisted they would stretch it out and it would be okay.
"What part of 'over gross' don't you get?" I asked.
They cut a pallet and reloaded the trailer. I had to drive 45 miles to the scale and back. It turned out that each pallet was 2520 pounds, for 45,320 total on a truck and trailer that weighs 35,500 empty with full fuel.
Try to have the load loaded the same from front to rear, at least 11 pallet spaces from front to rear, then slide the trailer tandems so the trailer axles are set at the same position at the rear of the load as the drives are at the front of the load.
If your truck has a suspension preasure gauge, make note of where the gauge is when you have 34,000 pounds on the drives. Too much preasure or not enough preasure will tell you you need to adjust the tandems.
Remember, Virginia will weigh you for free and give you an hour to make it right as long as you're not over gross.

 

I tried to enter some of the load patterns I use, but it failed.