Unbraked trailer, towing limitations

mkirsch wrote:
Oh I don't doubt that a "CVEO" said at least SOME if not ALL of the things being attributed to them. Even CVEOs are not all 100% up on the law or what it applies to.

To be certified in FMCSA laws is a lengthy school. The CVEO is going to know more about the law than what I'm reading in this forum. People say all the time "cops don't know the law", said by people who have never read the law. Driving a truck down the road sure doesn't make that person a legal expert in it and it doesn't matter how long they've been doing it.
Usually when someone says something totally off the wall it's due to 1 of 2 reasons.
1) They didn't understand what was being explained to them. They fill in the blanks with what they think the law is. Heard that way too many times.
2) The usual reason is tho they don't want to understand what's being explained to them because even tho they've never read a single statute in their life they think they know all about laws.

JRscooby wrote:

Well, if I use a tandem dump mostly to haul dirt and rough haul, and don't want to get into the heavy vehicle tax, I license it for 54,000 lbs. Most loads will be well under 16 tons, so I'm in good shape. OTOH, if I decide to load 20 ton of gravel, get caught, I can tell you exactly what it will say on the ticket(s) 1 will say I was OVER licensed Gross WEIGHT by (roughly 7000) lbs. And when I call the court, give them the ticket number, the will read the same formula as what the charge is for over axle or tandem weight. (That works out to $635.00 for 7000 lbs)

That's correct. You posted it correctly. Not overweight. Over Licensed Gross Weight. Your "Licensed" weight.
They can use whatever fine schedule that state decides to use.
It's what I said initially. A person has to learn the difference. Licensed weight is what you pay in licensing fee to haul whatever weight you want to haul.
I taught truck weight law for a lot of years. I even attempted to teach it to truckers.