Weight And Finding Scales

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Oh, I've got lots of stories to tell

Hope I didn't bore you Woody,

Not boring at all, in fact, tell all the stories you want!

Its stuff like this that us soon to be rookies love to read, both entertaining and educational.

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Oh, I've got lots of stories to tell

Hope I didn't bore you Woody,

Not boring at all, in fact, tell all the stories you want!

Its stuff like this that us soon to be rookies love to read, both entertaining and educational.

I got a story!

It was in the summer. I had to night drive a load. It was about 2am. I had to drive through a very hilly, small state highway. It was like a roller coaster, up and down. I was pretty tired and I was just trying to stay awake.

There wasn't anyone around. I haven't seen a car or a truck for hours. So it was pretty boring.

Then I thought for a split second that the world ended.

The pitch black darkness all around me suddenly became visible. As if the sun came out. Suddenly I can see the grass and every bush around me. Everything became lighted out of no where. I literally thought an atomic bomb dropped and what I was seeing is the blast from it lighting everything up.

I look up into the sky and I see a giant shooting star. This thing was as big as the moon (no exxageragion). It had a lengthy flame behind it and it lit up everything for a few seconds. I stared in awe, almost forgetting that I'm driving. It was the most magnificent, beautiful thing I've ever seen in my eyes.

I seriously wish I had a dash cam back then. And I believe I was probably the only one so saw it because the area was so deserted. In 10 months of OTR , I haven't seen anything close to as breathtaking as that was.

Wait a minute! I thought you guys were ROOKIES! That don't sound like information to me.

You all must have studied from the TruckingTruth website.

I must be falling down on my job here. Daniel B. beat me again. And RedGator is right. It works. Except if they are cows.

Well, I am not needed here. On to the next post.

My husband has already had an overweight ticket because his trainer lied and said he scaled the load out when he really didn't.

If you are with CRST they insist that you scale every load over 27k. I like the policy. This last load was 80lbs away from being over. We had to play with the tandems a little bit to make it work out.

We try not to do anything where we have to dodge DOT. It makes life easier and a lot less stressful.

Trust me....dodging a scales used to be the norm, if you were our of hours, overweight, or just cuz ya could..But now, the ticket, AND points on your cdl is not worth it. Scale as soon as you can, slide what you can ( if your under 80k0 to get legal AND leave you with room for atleast 1/4 tank of fuel. Tho in the winter, we wouldn't run with less than a 1/2 tank. To get ahead of the game, we would fill our tanks to 1/2 before loading...then they couldn't leave us with no room for fuel. sneaky, but fueling every 40 gallons is a real drag....

Our 5th wheels are fixed do I can slide tanduns all day but if your loaded too heavy on your drives you cant fix that. I personally wont run overweight. Its not worth the hassel. In training we toom a 80120 load from WA to GA. Talk about trip planning! I sat at that potatoe farm for 5 1/2 hr and had them reload 5 times to make my drives right. Now in some states you can run 13000 on your steers as long as your under gross.

It was my understanding that we were to take back roads and dodge D.O.T. scales.

Seriously, most truck stops will have a scale. Almost all Flying J/Pilot or TA/Petro truck stops will have a C.A.T. scale.

Dave

I would find a new company if that is their policy.

Try to make the steers legal and the drives legal. Aim for something like this:

steer axle is 11990 Drive axles are 33980 Trailer tandems are 34200

Gross- 80,170

That way they can just remove some weight from the back of the trailer. It wouldn't take long. They will remove about 220 pounds from only the trailer.

My experience ... and comments from DOT , is that they will usually let you slide a few hundred lbs. Not to say they will ALWAYS do that, so you are taking a chance.

If you do decide to, make sure the load is balanced as best you can, and try not to exceed 500 lbs overweight.

DOT seems to be getting tougher and tougher though. It's better not to tempt fate if you have another option.

Not boring at all, in fact, tell all the stories you want!

Its stuff like this that us soon to be rookies love to read, both entertaining and educational.

I've got a lot of stories! In fact, I put em all in my book Becoming A Truck Driver: The Raw Truth About Truck Driving and that link is to the free online version. That's right - 100% free - and full of great stories, advice, and insights into life on the road.

Well, I am not needed here. On to the next post.

I say that a lot now!!!

We have never had so many knowledgeable, friendly people helping out in this forum as we do now. I'm lovin it!

I agree guys the stories are not boring at all. I have learned a great deal reading this forum. As far as scales I only have a comment for those of you going in/out of Ca. The CHP there at the scales are picky as all get out. I lived in Ca. for 37 years and know their routine well. My best adivce don't even think about being a slight bit over in Ca. Rest of the country I don't know anything about.