What is the rationale for the Bridge Laws?

Get over it already.

You post something different then what work says. KUDOS. More power to you.

Those of us that haul heavy. Already know the bridge laws.

 

If you read snowwy's post, it looks like he's taking about trying to get over 80k with the extra axle, which isn't at all what was being talked about. In fact, you even specifically said something about still having to be under 80k, IIRC.

 

What is the difference between a drinking fountain, a water fountain, and a bubbler?

Answer, nothing but geographical nomenclature.

For KPRA, all states that have a kpra are 43 feet to the center of the rear axle with 3 exceptions: CA is 40 (or 41, in 12 years I have yet to pick up a Cali bound load), MN is 45 and IL is 45.5 (or vice versa).

If you read the regs, there is a lot of variance in terms, but where the rubber meets the road is 43 feet kp to center of rear axle will have you legal length for every state except CA, and 90% of loads you need (or want) to be in front of 43 for weight consideration.

 

It probably depends a lot on where you are.

I know that here we are expected to have a certain distance from steer tires to front drive axle. Another certain gap between drive tires, a certain gap on our jeep tires, another for front drive tire to rear most trailer tires, and yet more distance from trailer to booster axles.
Its enough to make a guy crazy.
A couple of summers ago a young guy came out and measured everything he could think to measure on my 12 axle set up.
Then he tried to make sense of it in his manual on spreads.
After about 10 minutes he admitted that he had no clue how to figure out my unit, so I was good to go.
Before I got out the door the 2 senior people in there told the newbie they don't even stop me anymore, because I know more about Heavy haul and oversized loads than they do.
Next time I stopped at that scale, i wasn't even out of the truck yet, he walked up and told me that I was good to go, didn't even look at my permits.

I don't think the people who work the scales even know half the laws.

 

Back in the 90's we had one odorant trailer from 70's that was really short, 36' IIRC. We pulled that thing all over the country at 80k, even though legal max because of the short 2-5 bridge was somewhere in upper middle 70k's.

Wyoming was the only state to break out the tape and nail us. We were right at 80k and when he walked out with the tape I knew exactly what was fixing to happen. States were just starting to really get up speed on a lot of regs in that era, and having placards always got more attention. Remember, this was shortly after the CDL came to be.

Thankfully, we were able to convince them that unloading at the scale was a recipe for every house in Cheyenne calling in a gas leak the way the wind was blowing. They let us run back to a Phillips 66 propane jobber in Ft Collins to drop a few thousand pounds into a propane tank until we got back from Edmonton to reload it.

 

assuming a 4ft spread I guess that would be correct I guess.

 

The second unit pictured should have the higher gross, due to the distance between the steers, drop and drive.