Too wide? Legal Width Restrictions

dapperdan wrote:
I don't understand, semi trailers are 102" wide and they go all over the United States. Interstates and state highways not to mention city streets and they get pulled into inspection/scale facilities all the time, they can use the roads why can't a 102" wide RV?

Commercial vehicles at this size are restricted to using "designated highways" per the Federal rules. On city streets, they know what streets they are permitted to use, and where they are banned.

Commercial vehicles also frequently run on specific routes greatly oversize per Federal limits: width, length, height, weight, often all four at once when carrying wind generator parts, refinery parts, drilling rigs, or construction machinery in this part of the country. Manufactured housing is almost always way over width limits. Houses get moved down the road by house movers.

Trucking companies buy permits to exceed limits, operate within time and route restrictions, with escort rules. That does not mean it is OK for a private individual to operate an oversize private vehicle just because they thing they see big trucks everywhere. The big trucks are not everywhere, they are on specific roads.

Louisiana is one state I know where 102" commercial vehicles will be pulled over, and fined, if they use roads where the state limit of 96" applies. Just the same as if they are caught over-weight or over-length when off the "designated highway" system.

I don't know of any effort to enforce these limits for RVs, nor how many states with the 96" width limit, or towns with weight limits for their city streets, make exceptions for RVs. But if you get your 12 foot high RV stuck under a 10 foot viaduct, or 102" wide RV takes out the side of a covered bridge, you can be pretty sure to get a ticket for being over the size limits.