maximum weight per axle?

Don't get me started on trainers. When somebody can be a trainer with 6 months experience something is very wrong.

 

Oh okay I forgot about the turning-around possibility. Just got into one of those pickles myself recently.

It's easy to describe for anyone who's familiar with the territory...

At around 2300 one night about a month ago I was heading to park along Riverside Drive for a Costco delivery the next morning in Mira Loma CA. Took the eastbound Etiwanda exit off the 60, made the right turn at the light, then, sleepily, I failed to make the next right turn onto Etiwanda.

Missing this turn puts you in a world of hurt. You have to go something like 2 miles to get to the next intersection. I made the hard right at that intersection. There's soon a truckstop-type place on the right you can pull into to get turned around and headed back in the right direction, but alas, I was apparently intent on trapping myself that night, because I kept going straight and turned right at the next light instead.

This was a big mistake (not horrible, just big). I'm pretty sure that once you make this right turn, the only way you're ever getting back out without touching any curb is to back the rig the entire length of an office parking lot, including backing around not one, but two corners of an office building. Once you do this, you can move forward back to the light and head back to Costco. [A truck with a better turning radius might not have to do what I did...I was in an International LoneStar with a ridiculously large turning radius.]

The icing on the cake is the office lot comes replete with a vagrant who will approach you for a handout while you're trying to do all this backing.

 

Why would a load that’s heavy to the front be unsafe? I’m usually 3-4K heavier on the truck than on the trailer, I want the weight up front. I don’t want to be dragging around a trailer that’s maxed out on the back, especially when the roads are bad. I try and get as close to 54k on the truck as I can, which puts me 50-51k on the trailer. It’s rides fine and it’s not unsafe compared to 52k/52k balance.

 

Excuse me, Did I state a front heavy loaded rig was unsafe? This is another example of someone going off and not actually reading the actual words used by the person.

 

Yes, your exact words were that it’s not loaded right or is some respects safely.

 

I give up! If your not going to quote the whole part but only cherry pick your distorting my whole point. YOU might be such a supertrucker you can get 54 K on your truck. However the average mega can't. Most of them have their 5th wheel slides disabled. These guys at best are not going to get much more then maybe 48K and stay legal. If one of these trucks has 20K on the steers they are going to have closer to 40K if not more on the drives. This is for the average hand an illegal weight and MIGHT <<notice I said MIGHT be dangerious depending on a bunch of factors. However if your going to continue to cherry pick I rather you go do it with somebody else!

 

Well, the exact words were "is not loaded right or in some respects safely." (italics mine) Let me sidestep the safety issue for a moment (I think we all agree that front-loading surplus weight is safer than trailer-loading it) by pointing out that re tire rolling resistance, distributing the weight as evenly as possible among the axles generally produces the best fuel mileage. Perhaps not by much, but over lots of miles it probably adds up.

 

I might also add this situation where carriers have disabled the 5th wheel slides is something some drivers are either unaware of or simply don't care about. THIS is why before you get too deep into helping a green driver with a weight problem you should make sure of that. The way these 5th wheels are set it is VERY difficult to load much more then 14K on the steers and have the drives to be legal. As a matter of practice I had rather have my front a bit heavy. It helped me generally much better then being tail heavy.