jmtandem wrote:
In montana, washington, oregon to name a few US states, one can do just as mowermech mentioned. I can license, pay for etc, an amount greater than my door tag, get pulled over by an leo, weighed, and still not get an overwt ticket for being 150% over my door sticker, along with 1200 over my paid for license. I was told to up the gcvwr from 26K to 28K with in 10 days, and keep until my next paid for renewal, I could then reduce the paid for gvw down to 26K.
I've yet to have an issue being weight over my door placard number.
Marty,
Is this a commercial truck you are talking about or a non-commercial purely recreational RV? Do they weigh non-comm RV's in Washington?
In washington state, ALL pickups are rquired to buy tonnage on there license, Does not matter if it is used for personal, rv, boat, commercial etc. ALL of us have to have a paid for license that is greater than our going down the road tonnage. We ALL have to buy tonnage in 2000 lbs increments, at 1.5 times the empty wt of the truck to the next highest ton. In "me Again' case, his dodge 2500 has a placard wt of 9900, his tare is 7300 or there about.....1.5 time 7300 is 10950, same tare as my old 3500 dually gm. We BOTH have 12K plates. Altho for my dually, the door placard is 11400. We are legal to 12K lbs gvwr. The door placard means squat. My 2000 C2500 is licensed to 8000 lbs. I am illegal at the door placard of 8600 lbs. As I am not paid to 8600 lbs. I would need a 10K paid for license to be legal at 8600. Reality is, I would also be legal to 10Klbs.
My SW pickups as does Me Again, we get 500 lbs per inch width of tire. Ea tire is about 10" wide, or 5000 per tire. 10K per axel, 20K per truck. We are only driving down the road at what maybe 10-12K? what chance in heck is an leo that is supposed to enforce the road bed/bridge engineer designed speced limits going to do with us? nothing, it is not even worth pulling us over to get weighed.
My duallies as most are, will be good close to if not 20K per the tire widths, with upwards of 10-12K on the front. Dullies get 600 lbs per inch width of tire. So the front 10" tire would go from 10K to 12K. If you have rears wider than 8.5", you would have the full 20K on the rear. My GM with 215 tires, is good to 21xxx lbs iirc at 600 lbs per inch. BUT, I am limited to 20K with that width tire. Even tho the tire sidewall is about 10-11K total for the 4 IIRC.
If you look up the RCW for the wt laws in this state, it is very specific to not go against the Federal bridge laws. as to NOT potentially loose teh federal funding that ALL states are to get, IF they allow the FBL's. So the FBL's over go the FMVSS rules. If a state inforces the FMVSS laws, over the FBL's, and proven, federal funds could go away, or get limited in that state.
EVERYONE gets up to 20K per axel, and 34K per tandem. The wt laws that I am talking about, go back into the early 1800's in some states on the east coast. My state, if you look up the wt laws, it still uses horse cart paths among other things. Those were limitied to what you could put on them, as to not have the metal wheel sink into gravel areas that the local city etc installed. Or bridges over streams, rivers etc.
The "bridge" part of the FBL is not for just bridges. Bridge in this instance is bridge or move the load over a wider area, ie not point loading the load on the road so you get asphalt/concrete flexing which can cause potholes etc. Or a literal bridge collapse! Some roads in winter can have limited tonnage on them , ie under 10 during a frost thaw. Too much wt on the road with frost heave can cause major breaks in the sub base of the asphalt or concrete.
The weight laws are there to protect the "roads" ie the road itself, not you and I from overloaded rigs, or other dangerous vehicles etc. Those are different laws and regs.
No they do not weigh rv's. Altho frankly, I wish they would at times, as MANY of the larger bus chassis type a motor homes, are running down the road with too much wt on the rear axels per the FBL's. They are under the FMVSS rated 25K axel. BUT they are causing damage to the roads being some 5000 lbs over what the roads are designed to carry, and probably not paying the appropriate tax/fee for the damage being caused.
Marty
