Scale That Loaded Trailer
Topic 32417 | Page 1
What did you do? Back to the shipper for a re-work?
Shipper:
The customer who is shipping the freight. This is where the driver will pick up a load and then deliver it to the receiver or consignee.
What did you do? Back to the shipper for a re-work?
Not in that area after dark. The shipper closed half an hour after I departed, and I let dispatch know I was not parking there overnight. I drove to another terminal in Wisconsin, and called dispatch with the great news the next morning. A truck route was plotted and I drove it to another terminal and dropped it. The final destination is less than two miles from there. It was a bad combination of events. Weight, location of scales (CAT Scales and state scale houses) timing, communication, nowhere to park in the area, etc. It was all bad. To top it off, less than four miles from the shipper, I nearly T bone a car that runs a stop sign.
The correct thing to do would have been removing several pallets at the shipper the following day, but I chose personal safety over all else this time. I was so surprised by the weight that I weighed a second time in Wisconsin. Still way too heavy.
Shipper:
The customer who is shipping the freight. This is where the driver will pick up a load and then deliver it to the receiver or consignee.
Terminal:
A facility where trucking companies operate out of, or their "home base" if you will. A lot of major companies have multiple terminals around the country which usually consist of the main office building, a drop lot for trailers, and sometimes a repair shop and wash facilities.
CAT Scale:
A network of over 1,500 certified truck scales across the U.S. and Canada found primarily at truck stops. CAT scales are by far the most trustworthy scales out there.
In fact, CAT Scale offers an unconditional Guarantee:
“If you get an overweight fine from the state after our scale showed your legal, we will immediately check our scale. If our scale is wrong, we will reimburse you for the fine. If our scale is correct, a representative of CAT Scale Company will appear in court with the driver as a witness”
Cat Scales:
A network of over 1,500 certified truck scales across the U.S. and Canada found primarily at truck stops. CAT scales are by far the most trustworthy scales out there.
In fact, CAT Scale offers an unconditional Guarantee:
“If you get an overweight fine from the state after our scale showed your legal, we will immediately check our scale. If our scale is wrong, we will reimburse you for the fine. If our scale is correct, a representative of CAT Scale Company will appear in court with the driver as a witness”
HOS:
Hours Of Service
HOS refers to the logbook hours of service regulations.OWI:
Operating While Intoxicated
Yes weigh everything. I repowered a load from another driver the other day to run from Martin’s burg, wv to Elkhart Indiana. That driver handed me the shipper scale ticket. Which was handwritten.. it had his empty weight at an even 30,000. He never scaled it separately at a cat scale. That’s about 1100 lbs light for our truck/ trailer combination right off the bat. Looked at the load of pipe on the trailer and it looked too far forward to me. In the am we drop down the road to a pilot . I was right front heavy. But I had 50 lbs legal leeway on my steers still. But we could only run 1/2 tank of fuel or less all the way to Indiana. Made it there and got it unloaded with out issue.
Shipper:
The customer who is shipping the freight. This is where the driver will pick up a load and then deliver it to the receiver or consignee.
CAT Scale:
A network of over 1,500 certified truck scales across the U.S. and Canada found primarily at truck stops. CAT scales are by far the most trustworthy scales out there.
In fact, CAT Scale offers an unconditional Guarantee:
“If you get an overweight fine from the state after our scale showed your legal, we will immediately check our scale. If our scale is wrong, we will reimburse you for the fine. If our scale is correct, a representative of CAT Scale Company will appear in court with the driver as a witness”
Smart move, PackRat. That's just ridiculous, being overweight and so unbalanced as well. It's a good thing you caught it.
We had a message from the company earlier this month, "drivers are to scale all loads above XXX lbs...." That's fine, but the problem is this does no good if a relay load left somewhere has no copy of the CAT Scale ticket included with the BOLs.
This seems like common sense to me, yet I looked at more than a half dozen loaded relay trailers at a drop yard last night. Not a single one had a scales ticket with the BOLs in the nose box of the trailer, and each contained more than 30,000 lbs of payload, according to the paperwork.
CAT Scale:
A network of over 1,500 certified truck scales across the U.S. and Canada found primarily at truck stops. CAT scales are by far the most trustworthy scales out there.
In fact, CAT Scale offers an unconditional Guarantee:
“If you get an overweight fine from the state after our scale showed your legal, we will immediately check our scale. If our scale is wrong, we will reimburse you for the fine. If our scale is correct, a representative of CAT Scale Company will appear in court with the driver as a witness”
Wow! I had a similar experience years ago and returned to the shipper , they said couldn’t be so I showed them the scale ticket. They took a pallet off and all was good, but I told ‘em; if your packaging scale is off by a pound or so (this was bags of charcoal), multiplied out you’re giving away product. 🤔
I can see how the missing scale tickets, on relays can easily happen if the driver used the Cat Scale app and didn’t get a printed copy (e.g. if they didn’t know they’d be relaying the load).
But yeah, never trust the shipper’s weight, agreed.
Shipper:
The customer who is shipping the freight. This is where the driver will pick up a load and then deliver it to the receiver or consignee.
CAT Scale:
A network of over 1,500 certified truck scales across the U.S. and Canada found primarily at truck stops. CAT scales are by far the most trustworthy scales out there.
In fact, CAT Scale offers an unconditional Guarantee:
“If you get an overweight fine from the state after our scale showed your legal, we will immediately check our scale. If our scale is wrong, we will reimburse you for the fine. If our scale is correct, a representative of CAT Scale Company will appear in court with the driver as a witness”
I get over loaded a few times a week. I have no control over how much gets loaded each time. I had one the other day that probably had me close to 84k. Once it’s on there, there is no taking any off until it all comes off. Luckily the short route we run with it is only a 15 minute drive across town but I still take it slow and easy. My time hauling heavy equipment kinda opened my eyes on how to drive being way overweight. We had a driver roll one wheels up the other week taking a turn too fast, I don’t want to end up like that. Some companies around here run overload permits but ours doesn’t. If there’s a state of emergency, we can run full capacity without any restrictions. The bears are thick and hungry on the other side of town on a regular basis but I’m nowhere near them.
I've learned that axle weights don't matter much in tanker.
The scale master's reaction when I pull onto the scale:
Dang PackRat!!!!
Overweight and seriously unbalanced! Good catch.
I rarely trust the shipper's weight. I always scale my loads. I had a similar experience a couple of weeks ago - although the gross was <80,000 lbs, all of the weight was in the back of the trailer putting the tandems at >38,000 lbs with them at 41' on the center of the group, and 33,970 with tandems all the way back. Sheez! Yeah, that load went back to where it came from.
Shipper:
The customer who is shipping the freight. This is where the driver will pick up a load and then deliver it to the receiver or consignee.
Tandems:
Tandem Axles
A set of axles spaced close together, legally defined as more than 40 and less than 96 inches apart by the USDOT. Drivers tend to refer to the tandem axles on their trailer as just "tandems". You might hear a driver say, "I'm 400 pounds overweight on my tandems", referring to his trailer tandems, not his tractor tandems. Tractor tandems are generally just referred to as "drives" which is short for "drive axles".
Tandem:
Tandem Axles
A set of axles spaced close together, legally defined as more than 40 and less than 96 inches apart by the USDOT. Drivers tend to refer to the tandem axles on their trailer as just "tandems". You might hear a driver say, "I'm 400 pounds overweight on my tandems", referring to his trailer tandems, not his tractor tandems. Tractor tandems are generally just referred to as "drives" which is short for "drive axles".
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Don't trust the numbers a shipper puts onto the BOL (Bill Of Lading). I was loaded a few days ago at a shipper in Chicago Heights, IL. Several large totes bags of granular pellets destined for Kraft. The BOL stated "43,533 lbs in 21 bags on 21 pallets". The count was correct, but the weight was way off. It was more likely 48,000 lbs.
After a trip to a CAT Scale on the way to my drop at the New Ulm, MN terminal. I was at 3/4 a fuel load, with the trailer tandems moved 6 holes further to the rear than I usually run (hole 14 instead of hole 8). Overweight, over gross, and over the bridge length for IL, WI, MN. A trifecta!
Shipper:
The customer who is shipping the freight. This is where the driver will pick up a load and then deliver it to the receiver or consignee.
Terminal:
A facility where trucking companies operate out of, or their "home base" if you will. A lot of major companies have multiple terminals around the country which usually consist of the main office building, a drop lot for trailers, and sometimes a repair shop and wash facilities.
Tandems:
Tandem Axles
A set of axles spaced close together, legally defined as more than 40 and less than 96 inches apart by the USDOT. Drivers tend to refer to the tandem axles on their trailer as just "tandems". You might hear a driver say, "I'm 400 pounds overweight on my tandems", referring to his trailer tandems, not his tractor tandems. Tractor tandems are generally just referred to as "drives" which is short for "drive axles".
Tandem:
Tandem Axles
A set of axles spaced close together, legally defined as more than 40 and less than 96 inches apart by the USDOT. Drivers tend to refer to the tandem axles on their trailer as just "tandems". You might hear a driver say, "I'm 400 pounds overweight on my tandems", referring to his trailer tandems, not his tractor tandems. Tractor tandems are generally just referred to as "drives" which is short for "drive axles".
CAT Scale:
A network of over 1,500 certified truck scales across the U.S. and Canada found primarily at truck stops. CAT scales are by far the most trustworthy scales out there.
In fact, CAT Scale offers an unconditional Guarantee:
“If you get an overweight fine from the state after our scale showed your legal, we will immediately check our scale. If our scale is wrong, we will reimburse you for the fine. If our scale is correct, a representative of CAT Scale Company will appear in court with the driver as a witness”