Cottonwood scale i5 nb

That's my stomping grounds. Hooker creek isn't marked as a non truck route, so technically you can take it. I'd do it at night way before I did it during the day

 

Any road is a good road around the scales....until you get caught. If they catch you, you need to be certain you are legal (size/weight) to be on that road....and you can't be intentionally bypassing the scale. Many places have laws prohibiting you from exiting the interstate to go around the scale and re-enter up the road (here locally, there was a scale where they'd have an officer watching the get-off ramp ahead of the scale, and another one past the scale at the get-on. If you exited, went around, and got back on without a valid reason you'd be cited for avoiding the scale. I always stopped to fuel and grab a bite to eat along the way...never had a problem). However, if you've planned your route so that you've been cutting through the sticks for quite a ways and it just so happens to bring you out on the other side of the scale, it's a different situation entirely....especially if it would have added a considerable amount of miles onto the trip getting on the big road prior to the scales.

 

I know a couple guys who have been caught on hooker creek. Both were 3-4,000 lbs over weight

 

Hooker creek has a 65' length limit and, yes, CHP does sometimes setup portable scales out there.

CA has no law about taking a legal route that happens to avoid a scale, I just wouldn't admit that was your intention. Perhaps you were stopping in on a friend who lives nearby?

 

Yeah, but virtually all roads in California, if not specifically an STAA route, have a 65' limit, so if you are over that, and that would be basically all OTR trucks, then you don't belong there unless you are there to make a delivery.

 

I run a day can and at max a 48' trailer. Most times I have a 42' so I'd be legal most days.

 

When the CHP sees you out in the boonies with a truck that usually has no reason to be out there...a freight rig or reefer...they assume you're sandbagging the scales. Why else would you be some place like that if you weren't heavy or running hot on your logbook??
You can come up with all the fancy explanations you can think of but if they see you out there and they have a unit available you can plan on getting to use some of those explanations.

 

But officer, I just pulled over on the off-ramp to check my securement and this is how my GPS directed me.

Thanks for the info. Too bad I rarely need to get around Cottonwood.