Wadcutter wrote:
JIMNLIN wrote:
ok we've heard from a state dot officer [IL] on IL requirements,
I'm not and never was a "state dot officer". DOT is a completely different agency than the state police. DOT does not enforce weight laws, they do not do motor carrier inspections, nor do they have LE authority.
Truckers use DOT interchangeably with state police. 2 different agencies.
JIMNLIN wrote:
your rated weight [GCVWR] which is your data plate lists as your ratings, what your axles are rated for, what your tires/wheels are rated for...and dot loves to look at all of this
your "tagged" weight which is what you have declared your ratings to be for tagging.
Don't confuse registered weight with axle and gross weights. 2 competely separate things and one is not related to the other. The only thing in common between the 2 is the word "weight" but neither law is related to the other. It's confusing for those not familar with the law. When they hear/read the word "weight" they don't understand the difference between registered weight limits and axle/gross weight limits. The OP was inquirying about axle/gross limits.
I've explained registered weights ad nauseum in the past too. Registered weight limits are really nothing more than a tax. In fact if you look at your state statute for registration fees it's likely that particular statute is titled something like "registration tax fees". You pay a certain amount of tax, ie registration fee, to haul a certain amount of weight. For example, if you want to haul 8000 lbs in your pickup then you pay the tax (registration fee) for 8000 lbs. But if you then haul 11,000 lbs in your pickup you would be subject to fine for overweight on registration, ie, didn't pay enough tax to haul 11,000. We use to do force registration in IL where if someone as described in the example was stopped then we could force the driver to purchase higher registration plates right there before he was allowed to move further. The increased registration cost was in addition to the fine. Now we just write the citation and if there's a record of additional such violations, particularly if company owned, then inspections can be done on the company and force increased registration.
pupeperson wrote:
I wish you'd add to your comments the fact that equipment on our rigs that actually carry a DOT rating, like the tires and wheels, should not be loaded beyond those limits which actually are enforceable.
I didn't want to get into discussing motor carrier safety laws since they don't apply to the RVer. Commercial drivers should have received the MCS training. For a Troop to be certified to do MCS inspections is a 3 week class and involves a couple of very detailed tests. Weight laws aren't covered in that 3 weeks of MCS training as weight laws is a completely separate course that all Troops get in the academy. As a driver you know how extensive the MCS stuff gets. From front bumper to rear bumper and literally everything in between, including the driver and any passengers. When I was doing the full inspections it usually took about 45 minutes to do a complete inspection and that was if there wasn't any problems. I have done inspections where it took the entire shift to do the inspection on just 1 rig. If I were the drivers in those rigs I wouldn't have ever left the yard. Most of the time the drivers of those rigs were happy to help as they knew there were problems and had reported them but they were told to drive anyway or the company would get another driver. Find those kinds of things and the company gets a visit.
I am a commercial truck driver. And I have been pulled over for a weight check. Several times. And it was never by a Highway Patrolman. Always by a DOT inspector. They do not drive patrol cars. They drive pickups in this state, with some funky lights on top. And I would not dare mess with one of them. Laws may be pretty uniform from state to state, but apparently the method of enforcement varies.
Mike
