This is a real life question. I am in Illinois. Let's say that I took my RT crane to a job site. The crane is Grove RT-60S. After a while of working, the crane needs to move three blocks down the road (public road). Can I drive it on the road, perhaps with a lookout person walking by as I move? Is that legal to do or would it violate any laws? Thanks
In our state all you need is one of those Orange slow moving vehicle triangles, like all the farm tractors and self propelled machinery.
Check with your state's DMV office. Here, we are supposed to have a special "Heavy Equipment" registration and license plate. We also have to have oversize/overweight permits, if needed. I used to road scrapers, loaders, and motor graders all around our county. Lots cheaper than hauling.
Years ago, and I mean years, a contractor I worked for tried to "road" a Cat 966. The state DOT caught him and whipped out the portable scales, measured the wheel base, etc. In short, they applied truck rules to that loader. As I recall, the loader failed on multiple fronts and had to be hauled (it was almost 30 years ago). On the other hand, if you're only moving three blocks, you can take your chances.
Drop buy Tractor supply & pick up a license plate . http://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/smv-industries-emblem-steel-back-asae-2767?cm_vc=-10005 Would be more concerned about a traffic accident so would run escorts front & rear when moving . On edit , this is a good question to be asking the insurance agent . Make sure you are covered in the event of an auto accident while moving .
I think you may want to consider how busy that road is too.
If you move it Sunday morning at church time it probably doesn't have to be legal. But I didn't say that. Lol I have moved a fair amount of equipment through towns and have never had any trouble. Being a smaller crane and not all that overweight I wouldn't stress about it to much. Obviously try to move it when there's not much traffic. I drove an RT740 about seven miles one morning and didn't get a second look from anyone. But there's a fair amount of big farm tractors around here so if they can do it I should be able to as well. Of course your local laws may vary. Sometimes it's easier to ask for forgiveness then permission.
OK, thanks a lot guys. I did research this and printed out the law and a good comment page that all say that driving my RT on the street is legal. I did buy a SMV emblem also. In my state, I may (but do not have to) purchase a "Exempt Vehicle" plate for my crane just to have a belt with suspenders. By all accounts driving a crane is legal -- but driving it with a load is NOT.
A cousin of my Dad's once got a ticket for hauling a barrel of diesel strapped onto the deck of his truck crane, it had a "Fixed Load" license and as the mighty trooper observed, the barrel was not "Fixed". My hero, LOL
Did he go to court over this ticket? Did he win?
It was fifty years ago, I don't recall if there a "Rest of the story" or not, and he's long since passed to his reward so...