For those that never had a bingo card

And even worse Mississippi had 2 different colored fuel stickers, red and green. If your company had the red stickers, you had to stop and make your cash donation. If you had the green sticker (shown) you could proceed on, your company had an account and they paid quarterly.
Also,if you found an unused bingo card that had a sticker on it you didn't have, flip it over and warm it up with a cigarette lighter and loosen the glue, stick the stamp on your card. Not legal, but they never looked at the numbers on the stamp, they just wanted to see that you had it.

 

Wyoming did the paper in the windshield also.

 

The only two States that I can recall that wanted a peek at the bingo card from me was OK & CO. If I remember correctly, OK fined me and I purchased a trip permit, while CO just made me purchase a trip permit. More often than not, if you didn't have one, you just ran anyway. The chance of getting caught was low, depending on the State, many scales were closed more then were open (except cali), unlike now.

Seems like if the western states saw your rig was from the east coast or Canada, they'd make you come inside with all your paperwork. I don't recall ever being asked for the card in the eastern part of the country, not even commie Ohio.

When they started to get away from every state issuing a fuel tax sticker or plate (pre-cursor IFTA), ME, VT & NH started something called NEFTA, New England Fuel Tax agreement. That entailed one sticker with a placement for each States little sticker, basically one sticker with three smaller stickers on it, from there it was IFTA.

Before New Yuck issued HUT stickers, they issued a TMT (Truck Mileage Tax) plate that you attached to your plate holder. I have a couple out in the shop somewhere, and I'll try and get a photo of them.

 

Wyoming did give you a little card and a piece of tape each trip to stick on the inside of the windshield. Had the date on it in black magic marker.
When I was leased to CF and PIE, we had a little round red sticker with the letter C on it, stuck on the passenger door for Colorado port clearance. You would just get waved through the scales, very few fleets had this one. CF was always on top of their permits, they didn't want to have any excuse why you couldn't go anywhere in North America, and you didn't have to monkey around laying out cash for trip permits. Back when half the country was going 80k, but most states were still 73280, we were double base plated truck and trailer, California and Illinois. Allowed us to haul max legal weight everywhere, and still have all state license reciprocities.
Clausland, if you look at earlier sticker pic, I believe the lower left sticker with the 3 little squares was the short lived NEFTA.
And the real old days NY TMT plate was also required on your trailer too. Was a half sized plate. Then somehow they relaxed that, and just made the plate required on the horse only.
The pic of my tan 4300, you can see the half sized NY TMT tag on the bumper in the center on the top. Blue and yellow, iirc.

 

You're right, NY did also require a TMT plate on the trailer at one time, but that I think that was in the 1960's & earlier, before my time out here (late 70's on).

I do remember though that some older 40' boxes, with the roller wheel dollies and the rounded nose, that still had them attached to the back. Hitch up to a 40 footer now, and it's like, ok, where's the rest of it, LOL.

Later today, I'll try and find one of those TMT plates out in the shop and get a pix uploaded here....

 

I got checked for my bingo cards once in a while, but it wasn't real often. For a time I was driving for TSMT (leased to them). They owned authority for a couple carriers, and sometimes on a load we had to change from one authority to another on a single load. There was one we were legal agents for to do our own trip lease, and others we had to stop at an agent to do the switch in authorities. I didn't like the look of the paper trip lease signs and one time decided to just not bother. I was in a rest area and an ICC car pulled up next to me and an old gentleman comes up to me and asks for my bingo card. I had a flatbed load and I guess he saw the freight and knew the door sign didn't match the authority I needed for the freight. Not sure, but he sure made a bee line for me. Don't remember which bingo card I showed him, but it wasn't right either way. He was real decent about it. Just said to get the right signs on the door before I left the rest area. I thought I could get away with just about anything back then. Sometimes I did and sometimes I didn't.

 

My dad said the same thing about Mississippi back in the day. He was with his old man back around 1978-79. Got stoped and ask where did you come into my state and where you went and did ya buy any fuel. Said he got out the calculator and pencil....back then most of that money went right into their pockets after you left i bet

 

I could tell you stories about graft in these states back then that would take days. Mississippi was notorious like lots of others for shady stuff. Lots of their scales had a little drawer that slid out, you didn't even have to go inside. Stop on the scale, hop out of your truck, walk over to the scale window, they'd slide out the drawer. Put in a couple of bucks, get back in your truck and leave. IIRC, to cross Mississippi on I 20, it was around 2.50. if you didn't buy fuel.
Had a heavy ltl load on one nite, in the 70's, going from Baltimore to Texas. Got to Mississippi, got off the Interstate, took the old road in, which had a little scale also, but was hardly ever open. They were that nite. Got weighed, probably around 85k, legal was 73280 then.
Only one cop, read me the riot act, I played stupid, he told me by law he was supposed to fine me, send me back to Alabama. I pleaded, isn't there anything else we can do. He said yeah, give me $20., and if you get caught, tell them you came in on the peanut trail. US 84, no scale.
The funny part was, when I went to hand him the 20, he told me to lay it on the counter. He then opened a drawer, and took the eraser end of the pencil, and slid the bill across the counter, and dropped it into the drawer. Odd, always wondered about that, I guess he thought maybe I was setting him up, and he didn't want his finger prints on it,lol.
One other time late at nite, I was standing in a Mississippi scale and 3 very heavy bull racks slowly crossed over the scale, they all pulled around back, without the cop even telling them to, they knew the drill. Cop went outside for a quick pow wow, (and collection) with those cow wagons, cop came back in a few minutes later, and the bull wagons went off trucking, no big deal. Common occurrence back then, all about the things you learned, and how to keep on truckin', with as little aggravation as possible.

 

My dad has stories upon stories about the mob in nyc/jersey back in the day. 82-02 he was in and around NYC jersey area everyday. 10 of those year were NYC local 282 o/o steel hauler.

Started off doing ltl around nyc. Small Italian owned company, only got the job because my mom's sister was dating the bosses son. My dad was the only non Italian lol. They were the house truck for Lysol. Anyways 1st day on the job my dad sat 12hrs at one of the coffee roasters over in Brooklyn. Comes back and gets his ### chewed by boss man.

Asks him "did you make a connection?" He said a guy asked him you gonna buy the boys coffee. He said no i can hardly buy myself coffee. That was code for buying a dock, 20$ back in 82, another 20 to the checker. You got it back at the end of the day petty cash. Every now and then he said you'd see a fancy car pull up with a few guys in suits coming around to collect.

Back before my dad & the company he was leased to joined the 282 you brought your load of steel down to south Plainfield nj and the union guys took it across the river. Show up to a construction site and you the only non union guy was asking for a lot of trouble I've been told. Going down to join the union said it was like a scene from the God father. Big Italian dude sitting around a big fancy desk smoking a cigar. When he left in 01 or 02 the local was under govt trusteeship bc of it being so crooked and a few big wigs locked up on racketeering charges.

I was born at the worng time lol would of been cool to live through all of that back then