Survey - who has had a citation for RV overweight?

Here's the real concern if an RV is overweight.... you and your family's safety. Not to mention the vehicles around you.

If you are involved in an accident with your RV and if the investigation determines your vehicle is over weight, whether the accident is your fault or not, the over weight condition can be considered a contributing factor. Possible liability for you and fines.

^^^^^^^^I keep hearing that but I've never, ever seen any facts to back it up. Could you please cite a case where the overweight of the RV was considered a contributing factor and fines invoked? And how they actually decided the RV was overweight, and what they based their decision on?

Opinions are great, but facts are needed occasionally to base those opinions on.

British Columbia, Canada is the only jurisdiction that I am aware of that has a law in place concerning weights of RV's. Their law indicates that an RV or tow vehicle with a GVWR under 5500 KGs cannot be loaded over that maximum gross vehicle weight rating. In practice it is very unlikely that a 2500 Duramax towing a fifth wheel would ever run into trouble but if a car or truck is towing something with its headlights pointing to moon and a LEO sees him he can have the vehicle weighed and charge the driver accordingly.



Fact sheet

fj12ryder wrote:
^^^^^^^^I keep hearing that but I've never, ever seen any facts to back it up. Could you please cite a case where the overweight of the RV was considered a contributing factor and fines invoked? And how they actually decided the RV was overweight, and what they based their decision on?

Opinions are great, but facts are needed occasionally to base those opinions on.

Every picture I ever saw of an RV in an accident the RV disitegrated into shards of fiberglass and splinters of wood. There is no way to weigh that.

My Best friend is an RCMP officer and an RVer, last spring there was a mandatory course on overloaded RVs and how to spot them. He has never pulled over an RV, but has pulled over pickups that were severeley overloaded.

Having been in the trucking business at one time with a specialized heavy hauler and I obtained a lot of permits, the DOT scale houses are mainly concerned with weight as far as concerns to road bed or bridge damage. Part of what is called the "bridge formula", which concerns how the weight is "bridged" over the road surface into the bed underneath, covers the width of the tires, single or dualed tires to "bridge" the road and if the axles are spaced more than 10' 1"s apart.

Have you ever heard about an RV being concerned if their weight is spaced over a certain axle spread - No. Think about it for a moment, as far as the DOT is concerned, they're not interested in an RV because no matter how heavy you loaded one, you couldn't get enough weight on it to damage the road base - even during spring break-up weight restrictions when the truckers start adding more axles to "bridge" the load out.

Yes, the DOT will pull safety inspections and log book inspections on trucks - things they don't bother with on RVs. They're interested in Commercial Safety.

Bill

An F-150 pulling a 30 plus foot fiver WILL draw unwanted attention here from the RCMP. Ditto for an 8' overhead TC on a 1500 with a 6-1/2 foot box. If the weights exceed the numbers on the door sticker, the unit will get parked. We got stopped in a blitz, they checked our registration and waved us through but one unit was being weighed.

When I first registered my old '94 Dodge Ram 3500 CTD in Montana, the clerk asked what GVW (Note: NOT GCW) I wanted. I thought for a minute, and said "How about 14,000 lbs?", thinking there was no way I could ever load that much on the old beast. No problem. I forget what it cost, but it certainly wasn't much.
I drug a fifth wheel around the West for a little over two years with that truck, at an approximate GCW of a little over 21,000 lbs. Never got weighed, until I weighed myself at a Flying J in Idaho during the last trip home. I admit, the ongoing weight posts on these forums made me curious.
IIRC, the weight was 21,180 lbs.

Ancient history but - Eons ago dad (RIP) was pulled over in NY state in his pickup truck (IIRR he had commercial plates on it.) He had a track trencher in the bed and it did squat a bit.
Weight was OK on his axles and tires but he was over on his registration weight. Seems I remember the fine was $1000 or so.
He drove 10-wheelers and equipment trailers for years and this was his only overweight ticket.
So yes they will pull a pickup over.

romore wrote:
An F-150 pulling a 30 plus foot fiver WILL draw unwanted attention here from the RCMP. Ditto for an 8' overhead TC on a 1500 with a 6-1/2 foot box. If the weights exceed the numbers on the door sticker, the unit will get parked. We got stopped in a blitz, they checked our registration and waved us through but one unit was being weighed.

B.C., the only jurisdiction that puts credance on small vehicle GVW. The most amazing part is how they verify being overweight, it is 'in the opinion of the officer'. No requirement to weigh.
As I recall those regulations, which I read a while ago, the regualations apply only to the tow vechicle for tow vehciles under 4500 kg (trailer weight only ocunts for the hitch weight, this is not combined weight). Overweight results in a fine, no handcuffs.

Excluding the OP's post and mine, I count 28 replies. The count of citations is 0 for 28.

HTH;
John