its time the dot make the shippers have scales on their properties

AMEN !! 100% Agree !!

And yet the FMCSA completely ignores this problem.

 

Just saying what happens if you hit portable DOT scale on the way to the cat scale you still get whacked so why shouldn't shippers be required to have a certified scale on premises?

 

In 9 years I've yet to see a set of portable scales.
I bet they're heavy and awkward and a pain to set up,

 

You all want shippers to have scales? Guess what, that cost gets passed on to you at the retail level. If you take a notebook and pay attention to what your suspension pressure is when you weigh then you will know that 53 psi is 32k, at least in my truck.

Many of you spend too much time on "what if". What if a 3k pound meteor hits the top of your trailer and you do not notice and it puts you over on your trailer axles? Oh and damages the product.

 

Nope! they are actually quite small for what they are. Our local DOT officer has 6 of them in his truck so he can weigh 3 axles at a time.

 

I've seen portables a bunch of times here in Illinois and a couple of times in Colorado and Alabama... Doesn't appear that it takes much for them to be set up...

 

They do it in NJ ALOT hell they set up in shopping malls sometimes also on entrance and exit ramps of the turnpike

 

They're easy to set up and sometimes dead on balls acurate I've been rolled up on portables once in my life from the time of the stop till the time he was done handing me my fine was 45 mintues. In fact it took him more time in his car figuring, and telling me cows were kicking my trailer and to do the math than it did for him to weigh me.

As with portables you always have the chance to go to a certified scale and challenge his weight they either read heavy or light and the way it was explained to me if the certified scale reads heavier the fine increases. I signed the paper and hauled ###. I'd left OKC 10 hours before that and still had another 400 miles to wyoming so it was best not to worry and just pay the fine. It was only $75 plus court cost for being 2800lbs over on my drives. I made that in about 20 miles back then so I wasn't worried.

Haul grain and you'll understand why this isn't a viable option. A grain scale is supposedly certified, every grain scale reads different for example I'm 400 lbs lighter in lincoln than I am in narka. I'm 300 lbs lighter in Barnes ks than I am in linn ks and so on and so forth.

If a scale is a single pad 70ft scale, and on an incline when you axle out your axle weights will be off every foot of incline is supposedly 1000lbs I can neither confirm nor deny. But I can say for a fact I left Cargill in KC pulling bean meal to springdale last october. I weighed at the peelot before the scale down there at Harrisonville I was 79800 gross. Bought 0 fuel, my god #### BOL said I scaled out at 79200 in Kansas City so how on God's green earth did I end up being 79800. I would have rolled over Harrisonville but I was 800 over on my trailer. Sooooo....that being said if a grain elevator, or bulk company can't keep a scale straight when that's how they charge off of what makes any of us think that a shipper is going to keep a scale accurate when it makes 0 difference to them one way or the other?

 

Stopped at the weigh station south of Shiprock on 491 for a 30 min break. Little after I got there, DOT started setting up the Portable Scale.
Took them about 10 minutes.

 

Requiring shippers to have scales is one of the more absurd ideas I've heard yet, lol. First of all, that will never happen. Next, maybe we can just demand the shippers get all the product to the customer without having to touch your truck, it could damage the trailer, etc.