Attitude
Topic 31824 | Page 1
Hi Chris,
If your just a couple hundred pounds over on the axle weight, try putting it on your drive axles with your tandem adjustments and it will go down while your driving and burning fuel. Diesel is about 7 pounds per gallon so if you're 200 pounds over, it'll take about 30 min of driving to burn it off.
Tandem:
Tandem Axles
A set of axles spaced close together, legally defined as more than 40 and less than 96 inches apart by the USDOT. Drivers tend to refer to the tandem axles on their trailer as just "tandems". You might hear a driver say, "I'm 400 pounds overweight on my tandems", referring to his trailer tandems, not his tractor tandems. Tractor tandems are generally just referred to as "drives" which is short for "drive axles".
yeah that might have worked way better
Hi Chris,
If your just a couple hundred pounds over on the axle weight, try putting it on your drive axles with your tandem adjustments and it will go down while your driving and burning fuel. Diesel is about 7 pounds per gallon so if you're 200 pounds over, it'll take about 30 min of driving to burn it off.
Tandem:
Tandem Axles
A set of axles spaced close together, legally defined as more than 40 and less than 96 inches apart by the USDOT. Drivers tend to refer to the tandem axles on their trailer as just "tandems". You might hear a driver say, "I'm 400 pounds overweight on my tandems", referring to his trailer tandems, not his tractor tandems. Tractor tandems are generally just referred to as "drives" which is short for "drive axles".
It’s your call either way not his. Your license not his. Unfortunately you are going to run into a ton of more people like your stated example with **** poor attitude. At some point it won’t even register in your mind. You’ll learn to completely ignore. This won’t be your last encounter. You did nothing wrong. Although Sid is right it’s what you are comfortable with that matters. Keep doing what you are doing.
yeah that might have worked way better
Hi Chris,
If your just a couple hundred pounds over on the axle weight, try putting it on your drive axles with your tandem adjustments and it will go down while your driving and burning fuel. Diesel is about 7 pounds per gallon so if you're 200 pounds over, it'll take about 30 min of driving to burn it off.
Tandem:
Tandem Axles
A set of axles spaced close together, legally defined as more than 40 and less than 96 inches apart by the USDOT. Drivers tend to refer to the tandem axles on their trailer as just "tandems". You might hear a driver say, "I'm 400 pounds overweight on my tandems", referring to his trailer tandems, not his tractor tandems. Tractor tandems are generally just referred to as "drives" which is short for "drive axles".
My mentor at CRST hauls dedicated R&L trailers, Dallas-Fontana 4 days a week. He's told me numerous times, they've had to go back and have weight taken off. But he tells em take off 2,000 lbs + Especially if they have hazmat in their load,since they get DOT scale inspections at least 50 times a year !
HAZMAT:
Hazardous Materials
Explosive, flammable, poisonous or otherwise potentially dangerous cargo. Large amounts of especially hazardous cargo are required to be placarded under HAZMAT regulations
DOT:
Department Of Transportation
A department of the federal executive branch responsible for the national highways and for railroad and airline safety. It also manages Amtrak, the national railroad system, and the Coast Guard.
State and Federal DOT Officers are responsible for commercial vehicle enforcement. "The truck police" you could call them.
"Why do we weigh", you were asked?
I would have replied, "Because those loading the trailer cannot do their part correctly."
HOS:
Hours Of Service
HOS refers to the logbook hours of service regulations.
Nooope. I’m still fairly new but I’d take it back. While I was in training we had an overweight. Baled scrap paper going to a mill. My trainer was a hardass and told him to take two bales off just to be sure.
I’ve only been overweight once, Dec 24th 2020 on a reefer load from ATL to Jax, going on home time then deliver in Jax.
The place took forever to load and was likely closing soon. I was 3000 over gross.
I stopped and checked driver reports of the stations. All the mounties went home for the holidays. Lucked out on that one.
Reefer:
A refrigerated trailer.
Why stop at a scale? Because to we don’t want to get a citation. If my BOL shows a weight of over 30,000 lbs, it’s going to get scaled at the first scale I come to. Last week I weighed a load that I was confident was under gross weight, and it was, but there were 1400 lbs too much on the trailer tandems. Slid the tandems back 6 holes and everything was fine. I got back on the road and within 20 miles I encountered a state weigh station that was in full operation. If I hadn’t scaled and adjusted, I would have gotten a citation.
Also, I have the CAT scale app on my phone so I don’t have to park and go get the scale ticket. The app really makes scaling fun, I love it.
Another tip: Make it a point to weigh your truck and trailer when it’s empty. Keep a record of the empty weight. Then you can do the math and know what your gross weight will be by adding the load weight to your tractor/trailer empty weight. You will then have a fairly accurate idea of what your gross weight will be.
Tandems:
Tandem Axles
A set of axles spaced close together, legally defined as more than 40 and less than 96 inches apart by the USDOT. Drivers tend to refer to the tandem axles on their trailer as just "tandems". You might hear a driver say, "I'm 400 pounds overweight on my tandems", referring to his trailer tandems, not his tractor tandems. Tractor tandems are generally just referred to as "drives" which is short for "drive axles".
Tandem:
Tandem Axles
A set of axles spaced close together, legally defined as more than 40 and less than 96 inches apart by the USDOT. Drivers tend to refer to the tandem axles on their trailer as just "tandems". You might hear a driver say, "I'm 400 pounds overweight on my tandems", referring to his trailer tandems, not his tractor tandems. Tractor tandems are generally just referred to as "drives" which is short for "drive axles".
CAT Scale:
A network of over 1,500 certified truck scales across the U.S. and Canada found primarily at truck stops. CAT scales are by far the most trustworthy scales out there.
In fact, CAT Scale offers an unconditional Guarantee:
“If you get an overweight fine from the state after our scale showed your legal, we will immediately check our scale. If our scale is wrong, we will reimburse you for the fine. If our scale is correct, a representative of CAT Scale Company will appear in court with the driver as a witness”
You can’t do anything about someone else’s attitude. So, try to ignore it. Now, if that means they’re yelling or refusing to adjust the load, that’s behavior and you can address that.
I’ve had shippers say; “we never had an overweight come back.” Hmm riiight. Well, if their scale is of by a half pound and they have 20 pallets (of 20 bags each) of 20lb bags of dog food, that could mean they’re giving away 4,000lbs of product for free.🤔 Yes, I had that scenario.
I know a driver who avoids every scale he can, just so he doesn’t have to scale a load. But, some states (especially Alabama) like to use portable scales.
DRIVE ON!
Shipper:
The customer who is shipping the freight. This is where the driver will pick up a load and then deliver it to the receiver or consignee.
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so I hit my 10.5hours of driving and am done for tonight so now I am reflecting on this morning. So I got back from a 4 day vacation and had a load to pick up this morning. Picked my load up normally. Everything was normal took my load to the weight station and we as a little overweight on my rear weight it was 34,130. Took the load back to unload a crate or at least take a few boxes out of one. The person unloading a crate was really being unpleasant and asked me why I stopped at a weight station... I was like "because its the law"...... And he just replied "I have seen trucks skip the weight station before" with really bad attitude then I got unloaded and went back to the station and my weight was now 33,900 so I proceeded and drove had a small partial drop op then proceeded now I am done but have another day of driving tomorrow. I just am curious why people have to be disrespectful? It was there mistake for loading to much but I didn't have a attitude about having to turn around and go back so I don't see why he would. Is there something you do about attitude loaders or just ignore?