What is to stop an overweight tractor-trailer from avoiding all weigh stations?

Could be a 4 axle tractor.

 

Fat Lot Lizard?

 

Try it. Sooner or later you'll get nailed. Then you can do a post asking members for a good attorney.

 

You need to make sure the steers are actually overweight.
12k pounds isn't the max weight for steers no matter what your CDL school or truck stop counter talk claims

There are three criteria that determines steer weight, and it's the lesser of the three.
1. Axle weight rating. - Common is 12.5k to 13.2k
2. Tire weight rating - Common is 6,175 and 6,610 (I believe)
3. State weight restrictions. - Common is 20k, but it is all over the place.

 

Sometimes I get conflicting lights, green on my DriveWyze, red on PrePass, or vice cersa, green wins EVERY time.

 

For what it's worth, a company I use to work for had a former driver that routinely blew by the scales in Oregon when he got a red light to enter on his prepass. Eventually, Oregon DOT flagged the entire company, and every one of us that went through the state had to enter every open scale house. So yes, they know when you don't go in if you get a red light.

 

I pulled a load out of Chicago, IL to Toronto, ON. Load felt pretty heavy so I decided to scale it out. Showed 84K gross. I spent 6 hours getting loaded at the shipper, and it was a Friday. Didn't want to go back to the shipper so I planned my route to bypass the scales. Some interstates have roads that run parallel to them so you can hop off an exit before and get back on a few exits after the scale.