TRAILER WEIGHT

[Diamondpilot]

I sell boats for a hobby living and from what I have seen in my 20 plus years of experience of towing and setting up customers with the right trailer and tow vehicle is that tow ratings are there to safeguard the manufacturer. Engine has really nothing to do with it. It comes down to chassis, suspension, and brakes.
Lets face it we all see farmers and construction guys driving around with a 3/4 ton with the bed loaded and pulling 3 trailers full of grain or a backhoe out of a field. 50% of the time these guys are driving a truck that is poorly maintained and has the base engine. I sold a boat that weight 14,500# to a guy last year and he tows it every weekend with a F-150. Not smart but he does it.

Its just taking a calculated risk. You may never get caught but when you do the fines are high. I pull over my tow rating and take the risk also. I will just deal with it when the day comes.

Chris

 

[Builder]

I think a there's a higher authority we should all pay attention to here and that is concern for public safety. Towing over the limits of your truck is stupid and those who do it deserve to get caught.

There...... I said it and I'll live with the consequences. The reason I said it is because an overloaded truck lost control and killed a mother & daughter riding in a car in front of that truck right near me on a highway. I'll never forget that horrible day, either. I pray I will never lose control of my truck and hurt somebody, too.

When I see some clown pulling a 4 car wedge and I know he's overweight, it really gets me because it's just a time bomb waiting to go off and most of the time, some innocent person pays with their life. The only reason they do it is to save a little money and avoid getting their CDL. In other words, greed.

Don't overtow or overload with your truck. Buy the right truck and get the proper licensing and play it straight. You and the general public will be safer & you'll sleep better. We should promote safe driving & towing habits, and not teach each other about getting away with underspeced trucks and improper licensing & training.

Flame away.

 

[patrick_g]

Pat,... the point is these states are 杜ember痴 of the DOT enforcement crew and are starting to enforcement of the Fed DOT tow requirements your hobby could get you into a Business whether you want to be or not and it has little to do with what you are hauling,,, it痴 based on what you are rated to haul i.e., capacity !
Leo

Leo, Misery loves company. I guess I am glad that EVERYONE is being forced toward compliance.

* * * * *

We see the same thing here also in Indiana. I know it does not make sense but its up to the guys writing the tickets.

I agree 100% he was safe and it is safer to have too much trailer loaded lightly rather than too little trailer loaded to the max but thats the law here.

Chris

Well Chris, the law isn't up to the guys writing tickets. The enforcement officers may or may not "cut anyone some slack" and in some cases you may come across one who doesn't "get it" with respect to personal "Not For Hire" trailers. Here in Oklahoma we are not required to lisc or register our trailers if they are not used to haul for hire for other folks. (Under the CDL limit of course) I have a certificate of origin stating the source of the trailer, its model and serial and gross weight rating but it does not go on the road with me. Every so often if you get far enough away from Oklahoma (we border 5 states and nearly a 6th - -Louisiana) you find state and local enforcement folks who don't realize the towing vehicle is displaying an Oklahoma lisc plate and therefore may not be required to have/display a trailer lisc plate.

Diamond pilot:

Right, towing the boat with a F-150 is not only not smart it is illegal and is an affront and a clear and present danger to everyone on the road. IT IS NOT JUST THE GUY HIMSELF but everyone on the highway who is endangered by this callous and uncaring person. There are folks out there with families in the car who are being forced to play Russian roulette with their lives by that jerk. Just because he hasn't had a problem YET does not make the activity safe or smart. The guy is a cheater who doesn't show respect for anyone else on the highway.

Builder: I give you 5 gold stars for your post!!!

If I were the benevolent dictator there would be a very large bounty on scofflaws who purposely endanger the public safety. Jerks like that are one of the main reasons we have to have laws and enforcement.

Recently one of my friends was passed on a blind hill (double yellow stripe) by a bozo with a preteen passenger (probably his son.) An oncoming car popped into view and instead of using his brakes and falling in behind my friend, the friend had to hit the brakes to create an opening for the ***** hole. It isn't enough he doesn't care about his own safety but is training his son by example while endangering others.

We discussed this and thought the guy should drive off a cliff with his son on board. A bridge abutment would cost taxpayers too much and with the same genes and the example set by the bozo dad the kid is probably on his way to being a scofflaw too.

I have Nomex underwear so I don't fear flames so much

It isn't supposed to be us against the cops and whatever we can get away with is OK so long as you don't get caught. Antisocial behavior is wrong whether or not there is a bad outcome every time or just once in a while. How many innocent families have to be killed before getting away with whatever you can get away with is wrong? Some actions are patently bad, wrong, and dangerous.

I did 10 years of volunteer duty with the Coast Guard in SAR and ordinarily you can go to sea with just about anything that floats, more or less but... There is a section regarding improvident voyages. If what you are trying to do is so lame as to obviously have a high probability of failure (paddle across the Pacific from San Diego to Tahiti in a canoe with an improvised solar still for drinking water) and result in the USCG having to rescue you, then the USCG can forbid your trip.

If you want to do stupid dangerous things with trucks, trailers, FEL bucket rides (for consenting adults) and so forth, go right ahead with my blessing, just don't do it on public roads. The Darwin Award awaits you.

Pat

 

[john_bud]

Pat,
I must go from Florida thru the lower edge of Georgia into Alabama to my farm. Alabama has given the farmers a year's grace to the DOT number by allowing them to purchase the "Farm Tags" if they don't have them already. I think that year is about over! Georgia is stopping trucks like you say ODOT is ... a farmer near me was taking a JD 6400 series tractor to a dealer in Georgia to trade in and as soon as he crossed the Fl-Ga line GDOT nailed him and when the officer finished writing the ticket it was at $1400. The GDOT Officer ended up giving this guy a warning! On my way back from the farm on a recent trip the ADOT were out in mass and had a number of 18 wheeler's pulled over. GDOT was in a small truck stop checking and weighing pick-ups with trailers at the pump! Fortunately for me I was not towing anything on one occasion and didn't stop at the truck stop where they were operating and high tailed back to Fl. ... FDOT doesn't seem to be that concerned and I must say the GDOT is not hitting everyone either ... but the point is these states are 杜ember痴 of the DOT enforcement crew and are starting to enforcement of the Fed DOT tow requirements your hobby could get you into a Business whether you want to be or not and it has little to do with what you are hauling,,, it痴 based on what you are rated to haul i.e., capacity !
Leo

Leo, You are just screwed! The feds changed the laws for interstate commerce and put the weight limit at 10,001 pound actual combined weight. If you, the truck, trailer and load are over 10,001 pounds, you MUST have USDOT numbers for travel between states .... if the travel is related to commerce. There have been a lot of states that moved the bar down to about the 99th sub-basement as a standard of "commerce". To them, If you are towing a tractor, it's commercial. If you are towing an off road race car and there is a potential for a reward (money or ribbon or whatever) it's commercial. If you have hunting land and are hauling a tractor to cut trails (and no farm plates), it's commercial as the value of the land increases due to your activity. YIKES! those are all real and people have gotten tickets. Some states don't enforce actively, some are on you like stink on a politician.

I am a born skeptic and I try to see the world as money shapes it. Ask yourself, who benefits from this enforcement? The teamsters. It seems that soon you will need a professional CDL union driver to transport anything of weight across state lines. That may be wrong, but...

jb

 

[wkpoor]

I just gotta jump back in hear a moment.
If the mfg of my vehicle says my CGWR is say 16K and now matter what I'm towing its not over that then how am I being dangerous? If you want to get right down to it who regulates trailer mfg's against their designs. Do they have to prove the fail safe limits to anyone? NOT! I didn't get a certificate saying my trailer was tested and proven to be able to safely operate at 14K. Basically it just looks capable. About the only part that may be proven is the axles. The frame could be anything and usually is. Seems to me this whole issue is reaching out beyond common sense. We are all towing trailers built by people that are working off time tested basic designs. I doubt there is any real engineering that goes on at least on my level. I'm just trying to point out that in addition to mfg limits there are other things that factor in to the safety equation and most of those factors are not regulated/checked/or tested by anyone.

 

[Todd_C]

Guys the recent changes to federal law concerning interstate commerce is fueled by traffic studies that have been done throughout the nation. NHTSA and the feds are throwing money at almost all states to enforce traffic laws regarding small business owners who operate on a small scale. The majority of law enforcement has ignored this growing sector of business owners/operators because most LE has little or almost no training in the area of interstate commerce and hauling regulations.

The money from the state is distributed to local police departments and the state police through the state DMV for training and traffic enforcement toward specific enforcement areas. Everyone should take heed and make certain they are not towing overweight, they have their vehicles registered properly and carry the proper insurance coverage. There are several loop holes now that insurance companies could use against an operator if something goes wrong.

 

[LoneCowboy]

I'm glad that the DOT guys are busting all these overweight, not safe, unlicensed pieces of junk.

I spend a LOT of money getting and maintaining my CDL
I spend a LOT of money and time doing pre-trip checks, drug tests, safety stuff and keeping all the paperwork and logs.

And Joe Blow with his overweight, unlicensed, uninsured junker doing tractor work on the side can undercut my prices. Well, of course he can.

Those mobile DOT weigh stations are set up and designed to get people who don't normally go thru a scale (not long haul truckers). The rules are the same for everyone and should be enforced too. (RV's are my current favorite topic, those don't seem to get caught, I'd bet 80% or more of them are overweight).

If you are hauling a tractor from one state to another, you are engaging in commerce. Because you could (should?) have hired someone with operating authority to do it. (an M/C number and a UCR number), because there really isn't much reason to move a tractor from state to state, is there? (unless you literally live on the border).

a USDOT # is free, it's just a reporting mechanism.

Oh yes, notice I said insurance. Private individuals don't have to have insurance on their trailers, it follows the tow vehicle. It's not true on commercial vehicles, you have to have yet another (reasonably affordable) policy on the trailer.

 

[wkpoor]

I for one do carry a policy on both of my trailers.
Do I hear you guys saying that if I were to sell say my own tractor to someone out of state. And lets say I agree to deliver. And lets say I put that tractor on my 14K insured trailer. And lets say the trailer and or combined load doesn't exceed mfg specs I'm still breaking a law. And BTW when an officer pulls you over how does he know what the specs are? I'm starting to get real fuzzy here on all this stuff.

 

[wkpoor]

OK now I'm going to unload here.

I spend a LOT of money getting and maintaining my CDL
I spend a LOT of money and time doing pre-trip checks, drug tests, safety stuff and keeping all the paperwork and logs.

Most of this DOT stuff is a joke.
1st off I work in corporate aviation. You probably have no idea what time and money is spent keeping a commercial pilot current(its more than I make in a year). And logs yeh tell me about logs. Some mechs spend half there time doing paperwork and the pilots spend untold hours doing logs and keeping paperwork up to date. Pre-trip checks- I'd like to see the truck that gets a preflight anything close to an aircraft. Safety stuff- If a semi or any large truck were maintained like an aircraft it would need one full time person devoted just to maintenance tracking alone. Not including actually performing the scheduled maintenance.
I do agree there should be laws governing certain aspects of motor vehicles but all the laws in affect right now don't say anything about something as simple as whether or not I maintain the wheel bearings on my trailer or the brakes. So what I'm saying is it sounds like the DOT laws are all about what can be seen from a cruiser and not what really counts.
However.....if all this stuff were done right it would cost soooooo much no one could afford anything.

 

[Todd_C]

Wkpoor,

I used to agree with what you said, but the times are now changing. I'm talking about a traffic checking detail with CMV trained officers looking for all the little things like checking weight, brakes, log books, placards, fuel, etc. What is changing is that the average LE is now getting this training and knowledge of the CMV world.