Joliet IL Weight Trap Ruined Me Financially

Stay away from Joliet IL poor signage on a truck route got me nailed with a 13000 thousand dollar overweight ticket. Went to court apparently this is a pretty common cash grab in this area. Anyone else have the bad luck of running into these jerk local pd here?

If the signage is poor shouldn't you be able to fight that?

I live in Joliet IL where did this happen at? If it's the one road downtown there is like 5 signs saying 20 ton limit.

"Poor signage" is usually how we describe signs that we failed to pay attention to. Don't You Dare Miss That Sign!

Thirteen Grand - That's crazy!

If it is US 30 the signage isnt poor. and it is listed on the various apps and IL website. I was very new and still saw it at 0300. I remember cause there is a 13ft 6 bridge there i was terrified to go under. It was snowing and I was looking for parking. I saw it with no problem.

You got the ticket for being overweight, not for passing the scale. Had you been legal, they probably would have let you go or at least let you slide the tandems.

The "trap" is that it is a small and is usually closed so lazy truckers run the route illegally then get caught.

You cant be trapped if you are legal.

Expensive lesson to learn, but holy cow...HOW overweight were you?

Overweight fines are published by the State of Illinois...

5001 lbs over is $1500... It's $150 per each increment of 500 lbs over and above the first 5000.

There are surcharges of $10 for every $40 of fine. Court costs vary county to county.

Do the math. How heavy were you? In order to come close to $13,000 your weight had to exceed 110,000 lbs GVW.

Unless you were running heavy haul without a permit, I don't see how it's possible to rack-up a fine like that for "only" being overweight. What else did they get you for?

I did the math and got that he would have to have been in the neighborhood of 35,000 pounds over, which is possible of course if the road is posted for a 20T limit or less. I'm thinking g-town was calculating for over 80,000 at a weigh station.

Anyway, that's pretty rough, all I can say is don't let it drive you to make any bad life decisions. It's a lot of money alll at once but not really that much over time.

Overweight fines are published by the State of Illinois...

5001 lbs over is $1500... It's $150 per each increment of 500 lbs over and above the first 5000.

There are surcharges of $10 for every $40 of fine. Court costs vary county to county.

Do the math. How heavy were you? In order to come close to $13,000 your weight had to exceed 110,000 lbs GVW.

Unless you were running heavy haul without a permit, I don't see how it's possible to rack-up a fine like that for "only" being overweight. What else did they get you for?

Actually they raised the rates of the overweight ticklets over 1000% of the national average, Midwest truckers association fought this and they cannot do this anymore, It really was poor signage. Pulled out of my customer had 29,000 pounds of drywall if I remember my bold correctly got about a half mile up the road where a sign said there was a weight restriction 5 miles ahead was getting off of this route before then. Got pulled over by a county cop about 2 miles up the road well before any weight restriction cop took my id made me follow to shut down weigh station and clocked me on portable scales.

Article: Trucking association accuses Will County of unfair overweight ticketing

The head of the Midwest Truckers Association has alleged in a letter to the state that Will County law enforcement are targeting unsuspecting truck drivers along a section of Manhattan-Monee Road near U.S. Route 45 and issuing tickets in the tens of thousands of dollars.

The issue is rooted in what Wells believes to be “confusing signage," he said.

Truck drivers often use the road to access U.S. 45, but fewer than 1,500 feet west of U.S. 45 lies a culvert with a 15-ton weight limit. When trucks turn onto the road to gain access to U.S. 45, the first sign they see points out a 15-ton weight limit 5 miles ahead.

U.S. 45 also is about 5 miles east of U.S. 52. In the same line of sight is a sign that says the road is a truck route, Wells said.

That's the link to the article its happened to quite a few people, I was one of the cheaper court cases when I went to court. Never had a bad inspection, very safe on the road this just kills me cause my damned dispatcher asked me to run here as a favor... Usually I hauled beer around pretty locally did a favor got burned hard

I apologize. I thought you meant you missed the weigh station lol

I apologized i thought you meant you missed tge weigh station lol

Oh no I literally pulled out of my customer which was right on a legal truck route wasn't even in the weight restricted area yet... This was my first and only ticket I have ever had lol, this ruined me at least for the next year because they wont even let me renew my medical DOT card granted my license isn't suspended yet but they wont let me renew my medical so I cannot drive anymore until this is paid. Wasn't trying to get pity or anything just a fair warning be careful around Joliet Il