Legal to nearest scale even when crossing state scales?

Spend money to save money; install suspension air gauges and have them properly calibrated to save time and money on overweight tickets.

 

I know it doesnt seem fair. And Ive been subject to the same issue before. The bottom line is that the government does not care about fair. Also, never trust a shipper scale. They do not guarantee their weights at a shipper scale.

 

This is 100% accurate. Everyone worries so much about weigh stations, but they forget about portable scales. The rule is that you have to be legal on all public roads, not that you only have to be legal when you’re at a designated weigh station.

On-board truck and trailer scales are the answer to all your weight problems.

 

Couldn't agree more with the on-board scales. If I scale a load at a CAT scale anymore, it's because I know it's overweight and I just need hard evidence before the shipper will do anything.

 

Our onboard scales have saved us a ton of money and time. The only reason we use a public scale now is if the shipper or reciever requires a certified weight.

There's always an alternative to the expense of onboard scales...weld a length of light chain onto the center of the trailer frame near the back. Do the same thing with the tractor.
Load to 34 or whatever you want and cut the chain where it just barely touches the ground. Make a little hook higher up in the chain so the bottom link doesn't drag the ground.

Anybody under the age of fifty is probably shaking their head and laughing but we used this method for years on logging trucks and it works pretty good. Usually.

 

Just for the record there are a lot of scalemasters that will as a courtesy allow you to pass through if you are not really bad overweight, the problem with that is if you are not able to fix the problem now you have to cross the scales across the highway going back. Remember some do allow upwards of 2,000 tolerance depending? It sure is nice to be retarded (ooops) retired.

 

I can see that chain trick working well with a spring ride trailer. An air ride with a good leveling valve, not so much.

 

I agree and I threw that in there mostly for a little humor.
Back when were doing that we didn't have air ride trailers. Didn't have air ride trucks, either. The "good old days", such as they were.

 

I just replied because I could see a new trend with newbs hanging chains on their truck. "I learned this from an old hand"! Lol. I seen a trailer parked in some weeds the other day that had a brake adjusting wrench dangling from a chain by the axle. Id wonder how many people, if they noticed it, knew what it was for?

 

Yeah, sometimes we have to be careful what we say when the greenhorns are around. Just because we have grey hair and wrinkles doesn't always mean we're right.
A lot of the stuff we kid about they might take as gospel.
About the brake thing...I didn't go to a truck driving school but I understand that they don't teach brake adjustment anymore. We have some trailers with automatic slack adjusters but when they get gummy they don't work well. We can still adjust them by hand when we need to.