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Go!In Oregon, the maximum weight on the steer axle is listed as 600 pounds per inch of tire tread width up to 20,000 pounds. Your steer tires have a load rating of 6,150 pounds each and are 10 inches wide. What is the maximum legal weight your steer axle can carry in Oregon?
You must find the most restrictive law to determine your maximum legal weight.
The maximum Oregon allows is 20,000 pounds on the steer axle
The load rating on your tires is 6,150, which would put your maximum legal weight at 12,300 pounds regardless of the fact that there are less restrictive laws.
The maximum Oregon allows by weight is 600 pounds per inch. You have 10 inch tires so that would be a maximum of 6000 pounds per tire, or 12,000 pounds on the steer axle, which is the most restrictive of the various laws. Therefore, 12,000 pounds is your legal limit in this truck in Oregon.
What factor has the greatest affect on how much weight is moved per hole in the tandem slider rail?
Based on the following figures, how much fuel can you legally add while remaining legal on the steer axle?
What are the four basic weight limits?
In the following picture, what are axles 4 and 5 commonly referred to as?
California allows 20,000 pounds maximum on the steer axle. The tread width of your tires is 11 inches, and the load rating on your steer tires is 7000 pounds. How much weight can you carry on your steer axle in California?
We have to find the most restrictive law to determine our maximum weight.
California allows up to 20,000 pounds on the steer axle
There is no requirement based upon tread width in California, so the width of your steer tires is irrelevant for this example
Your steer tires have a maximum load rating of 7,000 pounds each, which would therefore limit your legal steer axle weight to 14,000 pounds. This is the most restrictive of the laws, so 14,000 pounds is your legal weight limit in this case.
You receive a scale ticket and your drive axles are 35,700 and your trailer tandems are 30,600. Based upon a trailer with 4 inch slider rail hole spacings, what is the minimum number of holes you would have to slide the tandems to get the weight legal, and what would the final weights be?
Using the following numbers, what would be the final result if you moved the 5th wheel back one hole?
What is the maximum legal weight for the drive axles or trailer tandems?
The legal weight limits for each set of axles is:
Which of the following are not a primary factor affecting weight distribution across the axles?
The primary factors which will affect the weight distribution across a truck's axles are:
This section was created by Trucking Truth to help people understand how to load cargo, scale the truck, and understand the laws about truck weight limits. These materials will not be on your written CDL exams but it is critical that every truck driver knows these materials.
There are four basic weight limits: single axle, tandem axle, bridge formula, and gross vehicle. The Federal Standards are as follows:
There are a long list of critical safety issues which require putting limitations on the gross weight, axle weights, the weight distribution across the length of a vehicle, and the weight distribution across a minimum number of axles.
So as you can see, it's critical in so many ways to make sure that we follow the weight limits in strict accordance with the law. It is incredibly dangerous to overload a vehicle or to have the weight improperly distributed across the axles.
There are several ways to distribute the overall weight of the vehicle across the different sets of axles. You will affect weight distribution by:
There are several factors that will reduce the amount of weight we can transfer between the different sets of axles on the truck:
Congress enacted the Bridge Formula in 1975 to limit the weight-to-length ratio of a vehicle crossing a bridge. They accomplished this either by spreading weight over additional axles or by increasing the distance between axles.
The idea here was to prevent putting too much weight on a relatively small area, causing damage to the road surface and bridge structure. By requiring trucks to spread the weight across a longer distance and distributing the weight across more axles, you help prevent damage to the bridges and roadways.
Compliance with Bridge Formula weight limits is determined by using the following formula:
W = the overall gross weight on any group of two or more consecutive axles to the nearest 500 pounds.
L = the distance in feet between the outer axles of any group of two or more consecutive axles.
N = the number of axles in the group under consideration.
The primary factors which will affect the weight distribution across a truck's axles are:
In the coming pages, we'll go through these one at a time and learn to apply each one individually. Later we'll put them all together and show you how to get your truck's weight distribution legal out on the highways, coast to coast, under any circumstances.