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Wayne
10-21-2003 20:58:06
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Re: tractor hauling vs. the D.O.T. in reply to Allen, 10-21-2003 16:19:47
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Seems like the biggest problem with DOT anywhere is that the rules are left too much to the individual interpretation of the officer that stops you. In NC nothing matters as far as licensing except for the sticker on the door if is says <26000GVW no CDL, if it's >26000GVW you need one, and that's all the normal officer is trained to look at. Now as long as there is a sticker your good ("something legal and more than just a note from your Momma"), but if their isn't then everything is based on the actual vehicle weight. For towing a trailer things change some as far as licensing. I'm legal to drive my truck even at 32000 full time weight, but the second I put even an empty trailer behind it I become a combination withn a combines GVW of >26000 at which point you must have a class A CDL. Even if you have a 10,000lb dually towing a 16001lb load your still over 26000 combined and this rule applies. Also your allowed 20,000 per axel on the interstate and 10% over that on backroads not posted for low GVW. My service truck is a FL106 with a 26000GVW sticker on the door but with the actual axel weights of 12500 front and 22500 rear all on it, (yes it started life as a 33000 GVW truck) and it's tagged for 38000. Look at enough used, medium duty trucks and you'll see them all over the board. The frame is actually the rated factor and any manufacturer be it the OEM or a company with a mfg license can rate them. In most cases the OEM doesn't actually give a GVW on a cab/chassis settup except by axel weights, so the actual bed mfg. is allowed to derate it, but not to rate it over the axel weights. Many of your U-Haul trucks, etc are like this, they have heavy springs, but are given low GVWs so anyone can drive them. Again, in NC the only limits to tagging one are based on length and number of axels. For a double axel truck, like I said the total limit is 40000, that being 20000 per axel, and as the length and number of axels increases so do the allowed weights. Something else that may be different in other states, but any pickup in NC that's registered as a truck that weighs over 4000lbs, which is most of them, should run commercial plates as auto plates are only good up to 4000lbs. However they can be titled as an auto(like most SUVs) and run regular 4000lb plates no matter what they weigh, but in the end I was told most oficers don't hacve time to stop every pickup like this so they don't even bother unless something just looks unsafe. I got this information after spending several days reading the Federal DMV book, and days on the phone trying to get info from different weigh stations. I was finally given the number for the DMV Safety Officer who told me exactly what I just said above and even went so far as to give me his direct line and tell me if I ever got hasseled about what he told me to have the Officer call him because "He was the horses mouth and told them what the rules were". It know all this for fact to be true now too because I got stopped the Friday before Labor Day on I-85N with a pallet of parts all the way to the rear of the bed putting me at 22375 on the rear axel. I handed the man my regular Class C license, he looked at the door and proceeded to write me a $138 ticket, and except for standing around shooting the bull with him and learning more for almost an hour, nothing else was said. In the end it's all a money game to get more money to pay for the roads that aren't gonna be kept up, and just another way for the government to try to make more problems the average man that's simply trying to do the right thing and live his own life without all the BS.
Sorry this got so long but government BS just forces me to vent..... ..
Happy motoring and watch out for the DMV man that argued with his wife and slept on the couch the night before..... ..... .
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