Heavy Haul Miscellaneous Thoughts, Ideas and Questions

I mostly run in Ohio so I fuel at the yard, most places you can get off so if I have to that's what I do. I have gotten off with super loads as well as smaller oversize and I've dropped and bob tailed if that looked like the better option.

As far as reduced width lanes I can usually judge and make my decision, I have pulled over and walked before as well as ran through in the escort truck to check it out. You just have to use your best judgment.

 

Yep I saw that. I 90 in Montana around Big Timber/Greycliff has traffic each direction down to one lane with just such barriers. I have been coming through there with 103-110 foot beams for the last two weeks and sometimes they just do not give a long load enough room.

A month ago on Hwy 200 just outside Sand Point ID they had traffic down to one lane on a left hand curve. I could not make the curve with a 116' beam because of the guard rail so I just went into the closed lane with my truck. Took out about 5-7 cones as the trailer followed but it was either that or stop and start the pony motor holding up traffic in the process.

There are times that you just have to take the room you need. Cones are a lot cheaper than your load.

 

I've run three oversize loads the past couple months. All under my authority, I've pulled the permits, I've driven the loads, I've been the captain. Y'all can laugh, but you gotta start somewhere. I'm starting to reconsider how wise it is to try to teach myself how to run OSOW.

I would say the biggest challenge is the unexpected issues. The last load I ran really opened my eyes to the fact I'm probably in over my head. In my experience I have found there to be a huge lack of training within the industry in general, and I'm not sure how to find a company who would help with training for HH/OSOW.

Also, I've never run with pilots/escorts. So I've never had anyone to ask for help, besides TTR. I thought finding parking or stops with a regular truck/trailer sucked, OSOW sucks even more.

 

I've ran a few nothing real big at all. I wouldn't do it if I didn't have some connections to current and former members of this site and a couple friends I've made along the way.

 

The loading/driving/unloading is the easy part. The permits, rules, regulations, fines/liabilities are harder to learn. I won't say I'll turn any down in the future, but I won't go out of my way to look for them, either.

The last load I pulled permits, then once they were approved I coudln't figure out why some of the roads weren't listed in the permit. It turns out that only the highways were covered by the permit, county roads were covered by the counties. So I should have pulled permits in each county I wanted to run in. I took the gamble of the 20 miles on each end, in two counties, to run unpermitted. But boy, I wouldn't have wanted to get caught. I REALLY don't want to run outlaw, I don't see any gain from doing so.

Side question- when truckers say they ran a load through the woods, does that mean they just wanted to take back roads? Or does it automatically mean they were running outlaw?

 

So don't, now you know so there's no excuse for doing it again. The first time is an understandable learning process, from here on out it is disrespect to those that do this everyday for a living. The DOT starts to think we all do it, and customers start to expect us all to take the risk and pass the savings on to them. Do not play that game.

Depends...sometimes it's cowboy outlaw BS losers who think their making a name their dumb @$$es, other times, that's where you get routed. I've seen an aweful lot of roads in your province guys who have been truckin cross country for 20yrs don't even know exist. Many days, I hate your permit office! I've seen way more of cottage country because I've been too tall for the 400 than I ever care to talk about...

 

I don't know if it is just my neck of the woods or if it's normal, but here it seems at the local level it's pretty well anything goes as far as permits or permission.
My part time hired hand is a full time township patrolman. His dad works the next one over. I rent land from the head man to the south and buy seed corn from a guy on the town board in the next one over. That is 4 townships and a total of 144 square miles of town roads/bridges. We all ended up together at a graduation one afternoon so I asked them about getting a permit to move a grain bin.
I got 4 blank stares.
"What do you mean they said?"
I said it will be 24' wide on a lowboy trailer. Just the top ring and the roof. Around 15' tall. Moving on town roads only.
None of them had ever been asked about a permit before. Didn't know what to tell me. Try the county. I said that is for county level. What about any farm/mine/logging operation/construction site that the address doesn't end in county hiway ###?
4 more blank stares.
I couldn't believe it.
I asked how a local excavator moved his 95,000# trackhoe and D-8 around.
They wanted to know why.
Well surely you aren't letting a 150,000# truck go wherever and and cross any bridge he chooses?
You guessed it. 144 square miles of N. Wisconsin town roads has never been asked for or given out a permit. Ever.

How do you guys deal with this in your day to day operations?

 

This is a post for @catalinaflyer.

I fuel up at the beginning of the day. Big load, drop the trailer, bobtail up to the pumps. Easiest way to do it. Want to know if your pilot cars are stupid? They will park in front of the load while you're fueling and you will have to verbally tell them to get out of the way. Usually, it's between 12' and 12'6 where many states start requiring escorts. And that's for the interstate. Dims are smaller for the 2 lane. Be sure you don't need pilot cars before you bid.

Now, if on your permit, you read something about the permit not being valid without without a provision sheet (Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin come to mind), BE SURE TO READ THE PROVISION SHEET!!!!! Can't emphasize this enough. You don't want to get a permit voided because you crossed a bridge to get to a truck stop.

What do you do if you come up on road construction and 1 lane is closed?

Depends. 12 wide, most of us wouldn't sweat it. We can get a 12 wide where most drivers can get a truck. 14 wide...now we're talking threading the needle. If the jersey barrier is set on the zipper, but the open lane has no obstructions on the shoulder, you can get through. If they have a guard rail on the fog line, you're not going to make it. What do you do?

I pulled a stretch load out of Muscatine,IA to Griffin,GA. It was a bridge. Load was 14 wide and 110ft long. 57 was under construction and so Illinois routed me in the 2 lane. We were on, I believe it was US150. The GPS said, "In point 5 miles, enter the roundabout."

WTF????

Full stop. I hit the shoulder and jumped in with my front car and went to look at the roundabout. It was a big multi lane roundabout. No problem.

Later, we were running along this highway to the east of i57 but ran parallel to the big road. Saw a sign saying road construction, 1 lane bridge. It was a narrow bridge, guardrail on the right shoulder, and the northbound lane was torn out. There's no way we can get across that at14 wide. Full stop. Had to call the Illinois HP. Smokey came out and read my permit, had to move all the traffic, and we had to back out about a mile until we could find a place to turn around. And they had to find me another route. It happens. I've never gotten stuck off route. That would be terrifying.

 

Yes, sir. I won't be looking to do anymore of these anytime soon. If I do I'll look into permit services.

 

It doesn't matter what state or what size your permitted for, even at 20' wide we would get sent on routes that we could not fit. After doing it for many years often times a judgment call could be made just by looking at it, other times it was parking and hopping in a pilot car with a 100' tape and walking it out taking measurements.

I have had to sit for hours while a construction crew moved barricades when they were set up either where they weren't supposed to be or incorrectly per the plan with the state. You want to really p#ss off a contractor, make them stop paving and move a paver so you can get through. The nice thing about that you'll be reminded by the bump in the road in that exact spot for the next 10 years that you made them move.

On really large loads we would more often than not hire a scout car to run out 20-30 miles ahead and make sure we weren't going to run into any "surprises". Tennessee is "supposed" to do construction at night but there are times they would run over into the morning and be blocking lanes they're not supposed to be. It's a lot less stressful to get a call giving you 20+ minutes to find a place to get off the road while the scout sorts out the surprise rather than arriving upon the surprise and being surprised.

My number one rule, when in doubt stop and check it out. I don't care if I back up traffic for 10 miles, I will not jeopardize my job, my load, my safety, the safety of my pilots, the safety of the public or the construction workers because I "think" I can make it. If I commit to going through construction, a round about, down a street, under a bridge, over a bridge it's because I'm 100% confident I can get through without damaging anything or hurting anyone.

Now as for fueling, always did that at the end of the day when I got parked and unhooked from the load, that way I could check everything out and I don't care of I drove 50 miles that day or 550, my tanks were full when I went to bed and everything was ready to roll. If I found something needing attention I have all night to take care of it rather than being a panic the next morning while 3 pilots and 2 state troopers sit there waiting.