Last week I had a load of #2 stone on the truck and when I came up the on ramp I see a dump truck and trooper van along the side of the road. He waves me over and the fun begins. I pull over in front of the dump truck he has pulled over already and he walks up and asked for all the regular stuff. He goes back to his van. I look in my rear view mirror and realize that I forgot to let the tarp out over my load. So I quickly let the tamp out while the cop is in his van behind the truck behind me. I see him walking up to the other truck with a fist full of paper and know this is not good. The truck behind me pulls away and now it is my turn. He checks all the lights, horn, turn signals etc. and then pulls out the scales. He has me back onto the scales, my first try I back right over them :Bang head and then the second try I get on them ok. I weighed 54,000 lbs so I was good on weight, he tells me that they give 3% error over on weight anyways but I was good. I ask him if the truck needs to be level and he says " when you step on a scale do you need to be level to get I correct reading." I believe that if the truck is leaning to one side that side is heavier. After what felt like eternity he comes back to my window with a fist full of white paper. I say "that doesn't look good" he says "not as bad as you think". "You have your mud flaps to high off the ground and they are not stiff enough, but if you fix them today and fill this paper work out today the ticket will be dismissed.” I tell him that you rip them off if they are too low but I want to comply. Did I forget to mention that I did not have my license with me, just gave him my name DOB and address and that was good enough. I Shook his hand, thanked him for being nice to work with. He says "you got a job to do and so do I" and I went on my way. Oh, by the way put new flaps on that day. :drinkup
Doesn't sound like a terrible encounter. Sounds like the guy was being fair to you and everyone else. Thank god no power trip with that guy huh?
The county sheriff got me for mudflaps being about 4" to high a couple months ago. The ticket was a $100 and no opportunity to fix it. He sits on the main road to 2 large landfills and does nothing but stop any truck he can. He told me he writes about a dozen tickets a week for short mudflaps. His job is funded by a federal grant for litter control in the landfill area, which is needed because alot of trash comes off those trucks. Funny thing is, instead of patrolling the state road and ticketing the offenders, he just sits in the 40 mph zone near the turn-off for the landfill and stops any truck he can, for any reason. Our tax dollars hard at work!
Good for you. I used to hate the thought of having a cop go over the truck and write 50 tickets, so I try to keep up on stuff. The first time I had a trooper pull me over of course the permit was expired (never trust my dad). Long story short, after 2 hours, the scale and the full creeper routine,1700# axle over-weight and one slack adjuster 1/8" out. Not bad on a 15 year old truck with 8 manual adjusters and grossing 83,000#. I'm sure you make things worse for yourself if you have a bad attitude.
My truck is a 1989 rd690 Mack so if he wanted too he could of found more. I was very nice, and polite to him, said this was my first time being pulled over and I was the owner. I thought for sure that I was going home with a fist full off tickets, The cop was about 50 years old so no young hot shot, thank god. I told him that I was concerned about him being out to hurt me, he said he was not, just doing his job.
Do you know about how many yards you can haul and be right at 54,000?
Try and convince that DOT officer to come and patrol the Hudson Valley area because we have nothing but PRICKS,except for 1 guy who we refer to as the scale whale---if he ever stepped on his own scale,he might be fined. He is a super nice guy though.
Hey nedly, that would be hard to do because every material weighs different. How wet it is, etc, so when I load my own truck on haul out jobs I am pretty sure that if I fill the box rite up that I would be over, no scale to check every load. When I pick up BRG I have no scale to check so I pick up about 12 yards but sometimes I get 14 yards and have had 16 yards on my truck. I use x 1.3 but this is not exact, so 13 yards would be almost 17 ton. When I go to the pit to pick up stone they have a scale so 15 to 16 ton but I have had 18 or 20 ton on ( over weight) , 15 to 16 puts me around 54,000 The trooper told that he gives 3% and he used to give 8% so this would be 55,620 lbs on my truck. This also depends on how wet the stone is. How many guys are going to get on the scale on be a few ton over and then drive off the scale go back to the pit and dump your load and have the loader reload again, not many and I bet the pit guys won't like you very much if you did.
Most places wont let you out over weight! They can be held responsible !
Not here, they have a sign that says "we are not responsible for your weight". I have to wait a while now to get loaded so If I was to to get reloaded that would slow the process down. I agree that if you are over you should dump and reload but if I do have to do that it would add a 30 minutes to the load a least. My pit loader is pretty good anyways, it is the haul away jobs that are the problem, no scale so you are just guessing. Just part of doing the job, I bet I am not the only dump truck that is over once in while, if that wasn't the case than the DOT would loose a lot of money.
Here in Texas they can write a bunch of tickets for being overloaded driver ,loader operator,scale master, and I know that they can think of some more if they had a mind too . We are lucky here our DOT man is fair to say the least . Right nnow do not have to worry we got about 2 in od rain so we are not doing anything withthe truck and have gone back to mowing .till it drys up .
I won't go back and dump,reload again either,but what I do sometimes right at the stockpile if the operator gives me visually too much is I raise my body some and open my center chute and adjust.
alot of the bigger pits around here have the on board scales in the loader so when u go up the scale house and get your weight its pretty close to the same every time
I have been to a few places with the scales on the loader and they are always within 2-3 % of the scale house. Its hard for the guys in the pit too because every truck holds a different amount. I take my f550 there all the time and the loader operator puts one ton in it which is amlmost nothin so I have to go up and tell up I can haul 3.75tn. He must get alot of guys with f350 dump bodys so he is used to just putting in a ton.
If you have air ride suspension on your truck you can install a air guage into your air suspension air lines, which you can use to calculate your weight with. They are fairly accurate and a cheap solution.
Just found out that now in Dutchess County where I work,the Sheriff's Dep't. has a new SUV all outfitted for DOT work,along with newly trained officers.I guess more help was needed as before I thought only the NY State Police monitored the DOT work.Now we have to be alert to this--more proof that NY is 1 of if not the most business unfriendly states in the country.
weight checking Tell us more about the guage, I have 2 air ride dumps and it took one truck 4 attempts to get it close, to the max It ended up costing me a trip that day, messing with the loader. We are getting paid by the tonnage, so we have to be close to the max. Thanks
tuney, the SO has had that detail for a couple years now, I've seen them set up at the LaGrangeville park pulling trucks in off 82. East Fishkill Police also have a DOT unit, but they rarely do much with it. It's going to be tougher and tougher to get by with much out of line and I've found out the hard way how much it can cost. Some of the laws we have to follow just seem ridiculous with overkill.
Steve--I heard about this 1 deputy who stops trucks,but what I'm talking about is a whole new division that will be doing DOT work. Just found out today from a friend who runs 3 dump trailers in Dutchess,Putnam, and Westchester. What LaGrangeville Park are you referring to?And do you know on what days?Pleasant Valley is now set up at the rec.park on Wed. usually--they got booted from the fire dept.lot.
Like I said, the DOT detail is not brand new to the SO, they've had it a couple years now. I haven't seen them on a regular schedule around here, the LaGrangeville Park is at 82 and Noxon Rd. I've seen them set up twice there last year or the year before. It was a Tahoe set up with truck inspecting equipment and 3 Deputies.