i haul with a 3500 commercially and as long as you only have a little car trailer to haul the truck on dont sweet it from pa to tn you will only see 3 scales between pa and tn if your comin down i-81 and they want look at you twice my brother blows buy them bout 3 times a week with a 25 ft gooseneck

 

So if I am in SD and i have my water tank in the bed and I decide to ride down the road for lunch I have to go through the gov. scales? That seems excessive. I bet the farmers stay off the hway.
Joe

 

The big green sign says "All Vehicles over 8000 lbs. must stop, RV's excluded" Yes I always see farm trucks pulling in...however I would say 90percent of the time the scale is closed. They also drive around in a van with portables pulling farmers over. This area is almost exclusively flat farmland, a big agriculteral community.

 

That means commercial vehicles over 8000 they know who they are! DOT MC etc...they don't want pick up drivers wasting their time.

 

Exactly! But seems to me anyone who owns a diesel pick-up likes to pretend they are a trucker and worries about this stuff for no reason.

 

Sometimes they have a Trooper sittin there watching to see if anyone blows by. I mean usually if its an empty farm pickup they don't give chase, but I've seen em chase down a 3/4 ton pickups pulling cattle trailers...not just commercial trucks! In the fall around harvest time they take there portable unit around all the backroads and set up to nail grain trucks. A couple years ago they issued the largest overweight ticket in SD history...it was a john deere tractor pulling a fully loaded grain cart. Something like 52,000 dollars...it was a lot of weight on just one axle, like 1100 bushels of corn. Axle weight limits here on some backroads are 6 tons

 

Take a look at the first pic in my gallery. I have never pulled in a scale in my life with that rig or any other, and they have never come after me. That thing about the tractor pulling a grain cart sounds rediculous. Here in Missouri any farm or construction equipment have no rules whatsoever except that they can't be on the interstate.

 

$52,000.00 fine on a farm tractor? You have got to be kidding. There are no weight restictions on any farm tractor loads as far as I know They even have the right of way on 2-lane roads. I have pulled 4 fully loaded cory wagons at a time and not given it a second thought. SD must be psyco strict. I don't see how the farmers let them get away with it. I thought SD was a big AG. state. I am glad I'm not farming there if they are so dead set on "shaking down" the farmers. $52,00.00 could wipe out a small operator in a bad year.
Joe

 

Yes I agree its kinda ridiculus here, but they just do it to protect the county roads from damage...you see, around here most farms are 2000-5000 acres, with some up to 40,000 acres, and they use the biggist of the big farm equipment. Most farmers have giant 4x4 tractors and 2-3 semis with pups. Certain times of the year if they drove them on rural highways they would destroy them. Luke S , I'll see if I can dig something up on that fine to show...I think he fought it in court but only got it reduced in half. I think he had like 35-40k lbs on that one axle and thats a no-no here.

 

oops, my bad!! I did some searching and it was 15k dollar fine.

 

that can be a weird situation...I've hauled cars and thought about that, but never really worried about it...as long as I was legal all the other ways...

I would say that your situation is a no brainer thou, it's your father’s car, what are they going to say....tell them to run the VIN if they don’t believe you…

If your really worried about it just go to a local sign shop and get a magnetic sheet that is the same color as your truck and big enough to cover the name...my buddy does this to use his company vehicle for personal use...the company don't care that he uses it to tow his race car but they don't want there name plastered on the side if something should happen....

 

Don't cover your DOT number . Make sure you have a DOT physical card and DOT inspection on the vehicles . You should have a log book . Not many people realize all compensated hours count as on duty . If you flipped burgers or mowed lawns in the last 8 days those hours are supposed to be recorded in your log book .

 

what are scales? hahaha. Seriously though, just load the car up and go. If they stop you , just tell them what the deal is and go on. You're not being compensated for it, why worry about it?

 

Here, here! people worry too much. I am illegal as hell and always have been and have never been so much as sneezed at. So until somebody tells me different, I am gonna keep doing it. I think a lot of guys like to pretend like they are truck drivers or something. I have never driven across a scale, I sure should but I don't.

 

if you ever are actually required to go in the coops, drive around them, especially places like ft. smith, and joplin. but some are almost impossible to go around like st. clair in MO and west memphis.
I get a good chuckle out of seing RVers and Uhauls go through the chicken houses. The scale man waves them on like they're retarded. The funny thing is when they wave back.