In the local newspaper.
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/...psbf714e6b.jpg
How overweight does a driver have to be to get a $9000 ticket? Ouch.
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In the local newspaper.
http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/...psbf714e6b.jpg
How overweight does a driver have to be to get a $9000 ticket? Ouch.
opps thought it was yours nvm
could be a dollar/lb scenario. I used to work for a precast concrete co. when i was in my early 20s, saw a couple fines like that roll through our dispatch office... boy were they pissed off about that stuff, but it was legit. Never saw one for almost 9k, but there was one where we had a load go out (they maxed the 53' flatbed) where they forgot to add in the weight of all the chains/fuel and believe it or not, the driver... wound up being over an extra ton, and they got a fine for over 2k. Think the other one was a 1k fine or so, either way... that is no bueno.
Think they fine people to hell and back for that stuff just to make sure it's a lot more economical to pay for their overweight permits, which are wayyyyyyyy overpriced. But if you're going to be 5k over, it's sure a lot cheaper to pay $500 (guesstimation) for the permit then $5k for getting caught without it.
So you can speed through an intersection without stopping while holding an open beer for less than $500, but you better NOT be overweight. Sounds like discrimination to me.
Oh, and Phred's right on the fine per pound thing at least where I've been.
What kills me is, the poor b***** is only 23 years old. I'm guessing a farm truck full of grain probably loaded by his dad or the farmer he was working for. How long does it take a 23 year-old to make $9k? Hope he can make payments.
Never know, if he was on company time in a company vehicle, even tho his name is in the paper, it would more than likely fall under the liability of his employer. But if not, yeah that'd be a tough one. One of those early adult year mistakes that can set you back enough to haunt you for years. Hope thats not the case. Hard to see a young guy get buried in legal debt, or any debt for that matter.Quote:
Originally Posted by pjost
Not every company is honest on the weight they throw in your trailer. He was over weight, should've hit a scale, saw he was, an adjusted accordingly. Or gone back an had them remove some of it off him.
He's 23 yep, but when he got his job he should have been trained to pre-trip, weigh his loads, etc etc.
The heavy fines are to discourage drivers, an companies from being so over. Sounds to me like he's young, screwed up, an will pay for this for a good long while. I see no issue. Is the fine high? sure is, an should be..your driving a 80,000lb loaded semi truck. Your supposed to be a professional. Not just a steering wheel holder.
People seem to think when you drive a big rig all you do is drive..newsflash..those guys do a lot more then just sit an drive.
Either way..sucks to be him. or his company. Hope they like talking with DOT cause every time their near a scale now they'll be pulled in. lol.
Once again..protect your freaking CDL from stupid crap like this people. When they say having a CDL is a privilege, they are right. Your not entitled to it, an if you screw up, they'll yank it from you.
Sirscrapalot - Wheels on the bus go round an round, round an round..the wheels on the bus go round an round..
I respectfully disagree Phred. The driver is responsible for securing/weighing/safety of the load he/she is hauling. IMHO, I think this one is on the kid.Quote:
Originally Posted by phred59
You said it PJ. At the end of the day, the driver is responsible for weight, his driving hours of service(HOS), etc.
The truck doesn't move unless the driver is ready to move it. Dispatch can yell all day but the driver decides when it hits the road. An it's all on the driver. He knows how to find a scale, he knows how to scale his load to fit properly, he knows his HOS, he knows how tired he is or how bad the weather is, etc. Or he should. An if he doesn't he needs to go back to CDL training.
So yea he's hit with a nice fine an will now know what it means to give all your money to the court. He learned a valuable lesson, he an he alone is responsible for most of what goes on while driving that truck. No different then when I started doing this gig. I threw away a lot of money. This young guy just did the same, but to the tunes of thousands an thousands. Sucks to be him but hey..I'd rather pay a fine then live with the fact I killed an entire family cause my truck was so heavy that I couldn't break in time..just saying. This could've been much worse. Go look up accidents involving big companies like CR England or Swift. He could have had it much much worse. Yea..he's getting off easy. He should be thankful he doesn't have to live with the fact he killed someone or a family. Sorry charlie..you ain't driving no pick up here.
I can't say I have sympathy for this kid. Being young is not an excuse.He accepted his role as a driver and all the responsibilities that go with it. This could all have been resolved with simple visit to a scale. ;) I bet the 10 bucks for the scale, an the hour drive seem like a better choice vs an over weight fine.
I could go on, but..it's a nice day. I'll rant later.
Edit: Oh an Phred don't feel to bad for him. He may lose his job but some smaller company or a bottom feeder will pick him up an give him a job till enough time has gone by to move on to something better. Or he could go with CR England..I hear you just need a pulse to be a driver there.
Sirscrapalot - Commonsense isn't so common.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sirscrapalot
Yes the driver is responsible for his load unless the BOL has an incorrectly stated weight that was issued by his co.
I have seen this happen before first hand, that incident where they calculated the weight of the truck and the load but did not account for the chains, fuel, driver, and other cab contents. The driver did not have any idea that he was 2k' overweight and his paperwork stated that he was in fact 300lbs under. Company admitted they screwed up, and paid the fine.
Depending on the circumstances and a company's policy, and where the negligence originated, would determine the liability of the fine. Lesson learned for the kid either way. But according to the law, yes... it's on the driver - period, because the trooper that nails you isn't a judge and does not have the whole story nor care to hear it, as he shouldn't. He has an overweight truck, and a driver to fine. The gray area between the state trooper and JudgeFinesALot is where someone either does the right thing, or gets screwed. Period.
Fines are usually based on driver and or companies track record and also the highways that they travel on...here in iowa they go back and check the highway for damage if extremely over lol
Anyone know weight limits in Maine? I'm new here and didnt even know there was a weight limit...?
Ha ha..Judgefinesalot..if that's me, I'll take the name. ;) Surely you can do better tho.
The kid could have handled this simply..go back an get reloaded, or go to a scale an get the weight moved off the over weight axle. An before the "But dispatch was yelling" etc etc excuse...Call safety after you get weighed an see your over, an tell them you won't be driving till it's fixed. Once you do that..no more *****ing from Dispatch.
At the end of the day, an the point is simple here..He's the driver, he's in charge of that truck moving. Be a professional driver, not a steering wheel holder an do your **** job. Weigh it yourself. It's your CDL not the company's. Nobody is going to protect you or your cdl when it comes to trucking, but you.
Far as high fines an safety records..you can thank the bottom feeder companies like CR England, an Swift among others. There is a reason the jokes go like this..
Sure Wish I'd Finished Training
An CR is called Crash and Roll England.
I was serious when I said all you needed for a job earlier at CR or Swift is a pulse. Don't even need a CDL as they'll gladly run you through their school for about 4 grand or a year of running really crappy miles at really crappy rates. ;)
Either way..dude got what he deserved. Pay your fine, move on with your life an don't do it again.
Lesson here? Don't trust the guy loading your truck. Pay the scale money an be sure, or guess an end up with a 9k fine. :)
Sirscrapalot - Pfft pfft!
Go to Maines DOT web site. Should have all the rules or possibly a local dmv office.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fubar701
Why sure, let me grab you the link to Maine's DMV site..
Motor Carrier Services, Size & Weight Limits, Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles
You can dig through the pdf. :)
This is to MI's DMV, I'm pretty sure most of the states have the same numbers for this. An if not, do let me know. I'd be interested in reading more on it. SOS - Who Needs a CDL?
I could have found it on the Maine site, but..I figured I'd let you have all of that fun. :)
Your welcome.
Sirscrapalot - Don't make me fine you!
I led him to the water BC. Let's hope he can drink without aid. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by BRASSCATCHER
An yes Fubar your being picked on, welcome to the club.
Sirscrapalot - Making Fubar feel a member of the family.
I only wanted to add the glaringly obvious. What if he did scale at his yard...or was coming off a field? Once grain is in a 40 footer...this time of year its gonna quite heavy Ive seen it scale 8k over the axle limit...because the combine operator is a moron...or they just want to cut max profits. Likewise... seen a yard scale not read correctly...even on my personal truck. Load cells burn out...so checking axle weight as you pull off...well yanno where im going with that.
Lol scrapalot, I got three lil girls and a pregnant fiancee, you'll have to do alot better picking to get to me :) So am I correct in assuming where I'll be using a pickup and trailor, as long as I'm not over the truck or trailers max payload I'm ok?
Then in my opinion an mine alone as I'm not a DOT Inspector or in that field...the company should get the blame. It's on them if their equipment fails.
Now hey, I could be harsh an blaming this fella, but the blurb said axel, so...to me it could've been avoided. Not all scales are conveniently located to where you are, so in order to CYA you might need to back track or find a scale. The shipper, the guy hiring the truck to move his product is going to cram as much on as he can. Now some will be honest..others..less so. Maybe this happened to this kid? Who knows. I don't, nobody else here does, cept maybe PJ cause he has the paper. ;)
Either way, his career is far from ruined. He's still hirable, he just may have to suffer for a few months to a year before finding a good gig somewhere(if he was fired, some companies do fire for being over weight). He's young, he'll be just fine.
Fines suck we all agree on that. Sometimes you need to get hit big in the pocket book to learn your lesson tho.
I like this thread. It's a change of pace. Thanks PJ!
Sirscrapalot - Dear Diary, today I found a pepsi can. It was empty. :(
Ahh ok, general law any two axle must not weight more than 34000 lbs, vehicle weight and payload combimed
OK, so this guy was something like 10,800lbs overweight....BUT the DOT system of measurement in SD is a little strange.
Basically it states the maximum axle weight is the width of the tread in total on each axle times 500lbs... Someone should really give them a lesson in physics since you can in fact have a skinny tire AND have a larger footprint. Example: Supersingles are very wide, but running 110 psi vs duals running 95 psi, the duals will have a larger footprint. Why? Well, it's simple, the tire's carcass weight plus the pounds per square inch is the actual footprint of the tire on the road surface.
let's use my dodge. 6,000 lbs with me in it. I run my tires at 42psi, conincidentally the tire weighs 42 lbs. Static tire psi on the ground would be close to 43psi...thus a tire off the truck with nothing but the tire and rim combination would have slightly more than 1.5 square inches of complete tread contact with the road soooo.... a 6000lb truck, divided by four tires, divided again by the the air pressure of the tire would equal the contact patch on the ground... aka
35.7 square inches of surface per tire.
http://www.sddot.com/resources/Broch...riefing_2d.pdf <<<thats my source for the SD DOT information.
Anyways...it's a ****ty way for them to tag you with a fine on a smaller truck, just my opinion. In fact, cut me a ticket like that and I'm going to make your whole state look like morons for coming up with this stupendous failure of math. Imagine if your running a Single axle grain truck on 9.50- tires...those older trucks are rated for SERIOUS weight, always have been...but according to DOT math, a few mattresses would put you over weight.
That must have been very overweight.
Now, it says that it was overweight on an axle. Do we know if it's a semi axle? I've seen farmers go overboard on loading goosenecks, too.
Who knows what happened. I feel bad if he was a farm driver who worked where there was no scale to weigh on nearby. If he worked for a freight company, though, he should have reasonable access to a scale somewhere.
I was overweight by about 100 pounds on a truck once, but this had to be very overloaded to cause an $8900 fine. Or there was something else wrong, too???
That's what I mean...according to the archaic "maths" running 9.50 highway tires on any 10k/axle gooseneck would have you grossly overweight in a hurry. Lot's of guys I know in hotshotting run triple axle, single wheel goosenecks and fifth wheels for the best mileage. Do the math on a skinny tire and your talking some rediculous fines for hauling a couple generators around....and that'd be essentially in the 40k range with a gmc topkick or ihi 4700... Not suggesting the guy wasn't wrong just that if it was me...you could kiss my grits if you thought I'd pay a fine based on archaic math, especially if I wasn't over the manufacturer's axle rating.
My understanding is rating is supposed to be like this> interstate 80k/105k for double/triple trailer/truck axles. No more than axle or combined tire gross weight rating, whichever is lower...on any given axle...THEN levied fine for taking your truck down a secondary road with bridges and such not rated for your gross tonnage. A measurement of tread width times an arbitrary number do NOTHING...heck, some guys are running skinnies to save fuel right now anyways.
You lost me at "That's..."Quote:
Originally Posted by armygreywolf