Family of six looking for tow vehicle

Got it, I misunderstood the original post on the accident.

The person that was found at fault in the T-bone is the dead person! The dead persons family and insurance sued the driver of the vehicle that did the t-boning. BUT, dispite being some 10K over his gcwr, he was still not found guilty at the civil trial, there was no legal trial. The driver of the pickup did get his attorneys fees paid for by the insurance company of the dead person, along with his family had to also help pay for the attorneys fees. So a double whammy for the dead persons family! He pulled out with giving the truck driver room, he is now dead!

Also in bigger rigs, gcwr is not based on an engine axel ratio as it is in pickups. YOu are based on the end use, along with the type of driving you will do. If you are an otr 18 wheeler, you have a min 15% gradability in 1st gear, enough HP to hold 60 mph in high gear. Better is 20%, and a 2% grade, best 25% and 60 on a 3% grade. Same chassis doing city work, would be 55 for the 3 grades in high gear. BUT the low gear is a minimum of 30%, better 35% best 40%. If a cement or dump truck, you are looking at minimum grades of 60-80% that one can go up. Takes a lot more torque multiplication to get to these grades one can climb with out stalling out. This might come in the form of 2 speed rear axles, low gears in the trans, or axel ratio it self.

That is how big trucks get speced. Little trucks if one does it correct, will do something similar. If not, you trust the engineer in detroit, you end up like I did with my 89 1 ton flatbed. It could go up a 2-3% grade in 2nd gear of 3, but put it on a 15% grade, it was stalled out, going now where. Mean while the c2500 with a 105hp 292 I 6, with its low 6.8-1 in the trans, 4.10s in the axels, 275 lbs ft of torque vs the 454 with 385 and a th400 with a 2.48-1 first gear, was left int he dust on the steep grade, but the 292 only pulled the freeway grades 10-20 mph slower. BUT< the 454 could not get to the job site......hmmmmmm......below gcwr and not get to where I want to go, be over gcwr and get to where I want to go......hmmmmmmmmm...... not a hard decision. SO the same with my 175hp IHC, I can pull 30K up a 30% grade. My now sold 05 dually dmax, 20K up a 24% grade.........my 12K gcwr 96 6.5td, 20K up a 30% grade........I'll take the one that gets me in ALL the roads I drive to the end over gcwr that will not!

marty

I see that semi's always have GVW listed on the door or somewhere and they are required to weigh under that number. Also that many box trailers have rear axle assemblies that slide fore and aft, so that you can put more of less weight on the pin vs the trailer axle to stay under the tire ratings depending on the load.

GCWR in the consumer market is a warranty rating...think about it...the vehicle's brakes are designed to stop the vehicle up to its GVWR and the same for the trailer. BUT the engine, transmission and rear axle have to deal with the whole load since there is no powertrain on the trailer. This is why for example my truck with a 3.73 axle has a GCWR of 17,000 and with the 4.10 axle it's 19,000. GVWR stays constant at 8600 lbs. either way.

Interesting that the poster that T-boned somebody was found to be at fault. Years ago I pulled out of a strip mall towing my utility trailer and got T boned, mainly because the other guy was going 60 in a 35 and I misjudged his speed. They police report said I "failed to yield" and the ins co agreed. The other guy tried to sue me for a million, but apparently he was a junkie and after he missed the 3rd scheduled deposition, the judge threw out the case.

Larry,

What ALL of you do not understand, there is NO difference in what and how the wt laws are enforced between light, medium and heavy duty trucks! NONE what so ever. The wt laws are there to enforce vehicles from being overloaded and destroying roads. NOT what an engineer in Detroit or where ever is saying a rig can be loaded to! So from the leo standpoint that pulls you over in your van, you have the same rights and unrights if you will from the trucker driving his 18 wheeler.

Yes a civil case will destroy someone. The person I mentioned in the last post that t-boned a person, way over his manufacture gcwr. Not only did he win the case, but the insurance and family for the dead person, got to pay his attny bills!

Having had multiple class's from LEO?CVEO's here in my state, seeing what wadcutter has written about the wt laws he enforced in Illinois, seeing and reading the main federal law for road funding etc, ALL STATES are supposed to enforce the wt laws the same. it has NOTHING to do with the manufactures ratings.

In the states here on the west coast. many laws are the same, like chain up laws in the mtns. If you are over 10K lbs period, does not matter the type of rig, and chains required sign is up, you had better put on chains. It does not matter if I am commercial or personal towing an rv. I got checked in the mtn pass's the same as commerical rigs when pulling my rv to the local ski area.

If an leo wants to get you or me off the road, trust me, they will. Wts are not the way they will or can do so!

Marty

blt2ski wrote:

CKNSLS wrote:
If you have an at fault accident the other party's lawyer will care towing that much overweight.

Care to show an actual case from a court that this will happen? other than what I personally believe to be a totally false setup from some dune post in Ca IIRC!

In my state any how, ie washington, if the person in the van is under its max axel wt ratings, has the proper PAID for licenses etc, even if he kills someone, he will be legal from a wt standpoint. There are OTHER laws that will hurt the OP, but being overwt in his situation is NOT going to be an issue!

This shows the metality of some, where if you have a 3.73 axel engine combo, rated to 14000, then put a 4.10, you are good to 16K.......an axel ratio makes you 2000 lbs safer towing?!?!?! with everything else being the same?!?!?!?! yeah right!

Marty

You continually mix up the MDT/HDT regs with the LDT regs which is what we generally talk about here. Also, while you might be able to register your vehicle for about anything it's IMO a HUGE LEAP to feel that in a court of law that just having it registered for a particular wt. makes it a legal defense from a liability standpoint in a civil proceeding is being fool hardy. Just having a legal registration IMO does not defend you against being negligent in operating a vehicle in an unsafe manner because it is overloaded for it's designed capabilities. There are probably no specific wt laws in this regard, but I can see you being held legally accountable for operating a vehicle in an overloaded condition even if your registration is legal. This is sort of like being convicted criminally for murder, but being awarded a HUGE $$$$ judgement when found to be guility of the wrongful death of an individual in a civil proceeding ... both destroy you ... one by taking away your liberty and the other by bankrupting you.

Larry

Legal limit is the axel limit, up to 20K lbs, or you start to damage the road. You can have a manufactures axel rating to a million lbs, not that this will happen, more like 25K lbs. You drive down the road at 25K lbs, YOU WILL get an overload ticket of 5k lbs/$ for being over the road limit of 20000 lbs! Assuming you get pulled over and weighed.

You can be at 18K lbs, with a manufacture limit of 12200, and NOT get an overload ticket, if you are under the road limit of 20K lbs or 600 lbs per inch width of tire, in my case, 4 8.5" tires good to 19200. My tires are good to 12200 per the sidewall. I did not know the truck was this loaded, got pulled over, no over wt ticket, as I was under the paid for license wt. But DID get a ticket as the pea gravel in the bed was coming out of the barn doors on the truck. That is a moving violation. An over wt ticket if it would have occured, is NOT a moving violation, and does not go on ones record!

LEO's DO NOT have a way of figuring out your gcwr when you are pulled over, or after an accident. THey have VERY BLACK AND WHITE laws they have to follow. Manufactures ratings are not very black and white to a degree! Especially gcwr's! How does an axle ratio make one more safe at 2000 lbs higher rating? its not! I can still T-bone you at, over or under my gcwr and still kill you! So are you less dead when I am under a gcwr? more dead when over a gcwr? or just dead when at gcwr? To me dead is dead!

A poster on here did t-bone a person, killed them. No tickets from the police on the site. The poster was at the trucks gvwr of 9900 lbs, at the trailer axel ratings of 19K lbs, his gcwr per dodge was 19K lbs. The insurance company of the deceased and family went after him. The attny for the poster found many citations showing manufactures gcwr is NOT a legal term, nor did it need to be followed. At the end, in reality the dead person pulled out in front of the poster, so he was at fault at the end of the day. Bad way to end ones day!

One can find more than one citation of one looks, that being over a gcwr is not illegal or wrong per say. May not be smart in some cases, others, it is not an issue. I have a picture of my towing an 11K trailer behind my 96 K3500. That truck has a gcwr of 12500, the auto has a 14500. But WORST towing performance specs, and more overheating issues. Same truck with a different motor, 4.56 gears instead of the 4.10's, was rated to 20K gcwr. So I had 50 less HP, same torque from the motor, one gear ratio less. There is no other differences in the trucks. So how is the one safer at 20K than the other that is rated less? its not.

My and your insurance will pay out if you are in an accident over the manufactures tow ratings. Same as it will if you are legally drunk! Later you will get the proverbial cancellation notice, and if you are told in a civil court to pay more than your insurance limit, they will pay there end, you have to come up with the rest out of your pocket! EVEN IF the law did not find anything wrong with your rig! CIVIL issues are different than legal issues. Ask OJ about killing is ex! Legal not guilty, civil guilty!

Marty

Picture of my small trailer behind 96 K3500!


oh, and no weight distribution either! not sure if one can hook them bars up with a pintle hitch...........Do that on both this truck, the 05 dually I replace it with, and sold a few weeks back, along with my navistar dumptruck. Which has a motor good to 13500 per Ferd when they put the IDI7.3 in pickups! Try motoring down the road with a 175/330 non turbo diesel at 25-26K lbs sometime. Pretty slow!

I always find it interesting when one picks and chooses the parameters they feel are valid.
What makes the axle rating so much more valid than any other rating.
They all need to be applied in unison to have any validity. Picking and choosing serves no purpose.

Either you believe them or you don't, no need to apply any skewed logic to justify the decision to ignore parameters that are exceeded.

Look at the new specs, and look at the ones for MDT and HDT's! strictly performance specs for gcwr's. GAWR's are another issue. But gcwr's are warrenty and performance spec only. In my case, usually not good enough! ie they only spec 12% max grades before stalling out, I am usually doing 25-30 max on local grades. So the gcwr's are bogus from MY usage standpoints!

Look them up!

Oh, my insurance is good to, as long as I am UNDER my legal paid for license registration! if the legal license is over the manufactures, then I'm good! as is the fellow with the van and the trailer with his kids at 18K lbs, 2000 over his manufacture gcwr. I used to pull the trailer shown a page or two back with a 96 CC with a whopping 12500 gcwr. No issues at 16K, in fact it did better than the truck shown with a 14500 gcwr. That rig too also stalled out on hills greater than 15% at less than its rated gcwr too! The 89 was worst!

blt2ski wrote:
Very good, and if one looks at the new towing specs put out by the SAE, it shows, that there is NO safety reason for the tow ratings, only performance specs. IE, will it overheat, will it go up the % grade grade of hill, will it hold a min speed on a 5% freeway grade..............

I have not trusted tow ratings or gvwr's since about 91, when an 89 R3500 with a gcwr of 16K could not go up a 20+% grade at 12K. Meanwhile the 81 C2500 with an 8500 gcwr and a gvwr of 8600 lbs could! Yeah, there were a few rigs back in the day where the gcwr was LESS THAN the gvwr. BUT, if one looked in the OM, you would find some sort of fine print that said you could go to 1000 lbs over the gvwr if the gcwr was less than the gvwr. Along with if you drove at speeds under 25 mph, you could pull a trailer that was 25% greater. Those fine print wordings are not in the current GM OM's!

Marty

I will turn to you then for advice. It's good to know you know more than the engineers and other people who design and put together these trucks as to their GVWRs and towing capacities, etc.

Very good, and if one looks at the new towing specs put out by the SAE, it shows, that there is NO safety reason for the tow ratings, only performance specs. IE, will it overheat, will it go up the % grade grade of hill, will it hold a min speed on a 5% freeway grade..............

I have not trusted tow ratings or gvwr's since about 91, when an 89 R3500 with a gcwr of 16K could not go up a 20+% grade at 12K. Meanwhile the 81 C2500 with an 8500 gcwr and a gvwr of 8600 lbs could! Yeah, there were a few rigs back in the day where the gcwr was LESS THAN the gvwr. BUT, if one looked in the OM, you would find some sort of fine print that said you could go to 1000 lbs over the gvwr if the gcwr was less than the gvwr. Along with if you drove at speeds under 25 mph, you could pull a trailer that was 25% greater. Those fine print wordings are not in the current GM OM's!

Marty