Finding the 41 foot mark on a 53 foot trailer

Work for a company that marks all their trailers per "Idiots Guide to Trucking" manual.

 

Me too..

 

Before I ask this let me say that I haul a car trailer and my axles dont move.. Unless I do something VERY wrong..

So what's the deal about 41'?

(Need to know in case 1 day I haul a box or other trailer with moveable axles.)

 

I have floating axles....they dont ever touch the ground so no need to measure..

 

41 feet from trailer kingpin to middle of trailer tandems is a commonly the maximum allowed distance for 53 ft trailers. Trailer tandems set past that are subject to ticket/fine for over length. Maybe 20-30 states use this as their max. The other states have a different distance and/or they measure from different landmarks on trailer. Check Rand McNally for details.

 

I guess it depends on what size shoe you wear. Next time you get a ticket for being too long, just tell them you wear a size 16.

 

The seams on the trailer are 4 feet apart. You can use them to measure pretty accurately without a tape measure.

 

I've not found this to be the case often enough to call it a "general rule". Shippers that aren't loading to California often just pack the trailer however it will go on. They assume you don't care if the tandems are slid all the way forward or all the way back.

And shippers that are loading to California can't be counted on to load properly the first time. And even experienced loaders can make mistakes, maybe get the singles out of sequence or not single enough or any of the rows. Or single too many.

Any load that will put you near 80k, and comes past the 48 foot mark (in a 53 foot trailer) is probably going to be a problem unless they put some very light product on the very back.

You never know when the loader is new or the product is new and they haven't learned the bast way to palletize and/or load it.

If loading more than 40k pounds, never assume anything. And again I will say, often the stated weight in the bills does NOT include pallet weight. 22-46 pallets is a lot of additional weight. When unsure, ask.