Loaded Overweight

Shippers have been known not to have a freaking clue to the weight of their produce! That's why when a BOL says 32000 pounds or more go scale! It doesn't have to be at a freaking Cat scale as any will work but YOU are responsible for the weight of the truck being within regulations. But it can happen at least one time or as many as everyday!

For me all I had to do was tell my dispatcher the weights of all 5 axles and the gross and then what the BOL says and they would tell me to head back to the chipper to get it fixed. They would NOT pay for an overweight or for the OOR miles. If the shipper refused to reload and cut the load then we would take it to a warehouse and have them remove it and send the bill to the shipper. That simple.

Now the drivers rules are this: If you call on a phone to a dispatcher RECORD the call! If not there is no proof that you were told to "Run with it and we'll pay the fine." Crapola and they will screw you as the ticket is in YOUR name not Joe Blow Trucking. and if this company tells you to send the ticket in and they'll pay for it you still need to make sure they did by making a copy of the ticket on both sides and calling on it until it's paid by the due date or you're silly but will be hauled in or your CDL will be suspended! ALWAYS get the authorization to "run with it" on your Qualcomm or other in truck communications as written proof that you were told to go with an over weight truck or over on axles. OH Federal Law says only one person has to know the call is being recorded and guess what you know so it's ok. BUT there are I think 12 states that says all people need to know it's being recorded but this isn't by the police so you should be ok. Now if you tell this dispatcher that you're recording the call I bet he'll hang up on your arse so fast that you'll hear the wind flying by the headset as it's heading to the desk!

Now, do NOT believe anyone that says that they can erase the messages to you. Well yes they can on their own servers but not from the people who own the communications servers. They keep all messages as a back up for in case of situations and your situation could be one when you subpoena the records for your truck on such and such a date. Even a cell phone or camera picture of the screen will help also.

YOU are the one driving the truck. You are the one who gets the tickets so you are the one with the say so. If my company were to tell me to run with an over weight load my next message to them is "not this century as I'm heading back to the shipper from where ever you weighed and tell them you also expect the pay for the extra miles also. Then it's on them to call the shipper and tell them you're on the way back.
I do NOT pay overweight tickets for anyone PERIOD! I'm in this business to make money not give it away or get screwed. Then when the company fires you they will have done you a favor!

Just remember they are not the ones sitting behind the steering wheel. It will cost them more to fire you, send someone out to get the truck and not make delivery on time than risk a ticket or fix the load.

 

Some products and industries are worse on weight than others. I used to haul garbage for a company that did not have a scale. It was all estimated by cubic yardage, but there could be big differences as a yard of one thing might be really light while a yard of something else was really heavy.

These guys were pretty amazing at guessing weights, as they were usually within a couple thousand pounds, but mistakes would happen. A CAT scale would have been way OOR and required us to go over a DOT scale first. We only got nailed by DOT a few times, and that was just because our normal 2 hour long run sent us along the same route people would jump off the highway and run to avoid that scale. For the record, we were not trying to avoid the scale with our route, it was just the most direct and fastest way to get where we were going.

Think I only got two tickets in two years, which the company paid for. One was 86,000# and the other was a hair under 90,000#. Worst I ever had to pull for them was 114,680#, and we held that one for a week so we could run it at 6am on a Saturday morning when we knew DOT enforcement would be more lax.

 

^^^ Correct.

Most of the time you get overweight it is something in supersacks, bins, or something irregular and loaded by someone inexperienced.

Most shippers are good and know their product. I have a load pressure gauge and I can tell if I'm close or overweight. Then I'll head to a scale.

I might have 1-5 overweights a year. In most cases it involves being put to the back of the line to get it fixed. We are talking 5 hours or better sometimes. So I just run those loads because of the time frame and hassle.

Running at night it's easy to get around as most scales are closed.

 

The bottom line is if you as a driver know that you are over weight than any fines or jail time due to a accident causing death or injuring will be yours, not some dispatcher that you record on the phone. You as the driver is responsible for your truck and the safe operation of that vehicle and no one else. A recording will be prove that you knew your vehicle was unsafe to drive. As your on the stand in the court room the lawyer will ask a yes or no question from you,"did you know that your truck was over weight prior to the accident?". What will your answer be?

Drivers don't fall for the BS about recording your dispatcher or company president that gives you permission to drive a illegal load or unsafe truck. You as the driver is responsible for that vehicle, and as that driver you will pay the price. Your dispatcher and company president will have a good laugh over a cold beer about how gullible a driver you are.

 

I scale EVERY load. I've had light loads, but an axle was overweight.

 

I won't run without scaling. I work hard for my money and I refuse to part with it for a ticket. People in the warehouse may know what a pallet weighs but they keep building those pallets of groceries higher and higher. If I'm pulling out of a supplier with a backhaul I scale at the nearest scale and go back. If I'm at the W-M DC I scale there, turn around and take it back to them to unload how ever many pallets they have to in order for it to be legal. My terminal/fleet manager is very adament we do not run ilegal. And I'm a stickler for legal weight.

 

I can only speak for myself. I would say on average once every five years, that’s .2% per year. However I hauled extremely light freight for over 15 years. So my experience is abnormal from the average company driver.

Shippers are human, with that said, some do and most do not. There are good shippers and bad shippers just like anything else in life.

A shipper needs to move as much freight as possible for the least amount of money.

Yes, required by law.

You should know your exact empty weight with a full tank of fuel. Take that figure + declared weight on the B.O.L. = your gross weight.

Again, some do and most do not. In defense of good shippers, if your empty weight is 31,000 lbs. and they need to move 50,000 lbs. of freight they won’t even consider giving you the load.

With a scale. A lot of the shippers I use to pull for had their own scale so it was easy to check total gross and individual axle.

In my 20 years of experience I have received two overweight tickets. The first ticket I was a rookie, less than one year of experience, a 57 foot trailer preloaded by one of our local drivers full of general merchandise for Costco, Bakersfield. Under gross but over axle with a manual 5th wheel, stopped on Hwy 58 traveling westbound at approximately 1:30 am kept me there till 4:00 am because I could not get it legal. The cop felt sorry for me and let me go anyway. The problem was the way it was loaded, but it was my responsibility to weigh it before I left with it, company policy changed that day, if you even think you might be overweight go weigh it and the scale cost would be reimbursed. 57 footers can be a pain to load.
The second was about 7 years into my career when a load shifted on me, also my responsibility.

This is a can of worms; unless you have a Law Degree, Deep Pockets or a lawyer in the family I would think twice about recording any phone call.

Evidentiary Issues
Individuals and businesses that make surreptitious recordings often do so with the expectation that the recordings will be useful as evidence. Such recordings are subject to significant barriers to use as evidence. First, if made in violation of either federal or state law, the recordings will almost certainly be inadmissible. Second, even if lawfully recorded, the tapes will be exempt from the hearsay rule and will not, in most jurisdictions, be usable for impeachment. Anyone contemplating an evidentiary use of surreptitious recordings should consult with an attorney prior to making the recording

Quote provided by callcorder I will provide the link to their site.

The U.S. federal law allows recording of phone calls and other electronic communications with the consent of at least one party to the call. A majority of the states and territories have adopted wiretapping statutes based on the federal law, although most have also extended the law to cover in-person conversations. 38 states and the D.C. permit recording telephone conversations to which they are a party without informing the other parties that they are doing so.
12 states require, under most circumstances, the consent of all parties to a conversation. Those jurisdictions are California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington.
It is illegal under all jurisdictions to record calls in which one is not a party.

This is a HUGE can of worms, that I have been considering implementing for my own corporation, and I have yet to take the plunge. Seriously there are enough laws concerning this to make your head spin, think it through.

http://www.callcorder.com/phone-recording-law-america.htm

The bottom line; you’re the driver, your ticket, your license and your livelihood.

 

I work for a company who is to cheap to buy overweight permits in the northeast. Getting away with it for 40 years too. We are expected to run around scales, if possible. Our product is liquid and they know what it weighs. Math 101: send 5000 gal =8,000lbs overweight= big $. Send 4300/gal = 0lbs overweight. Everything less than the 7th load, and they have to put fuel in the truck, wear and tear etc etc, plus the truck can't load for the next day. Simple enough? Big money and not for the driver!!