- Hi there smart driver Rick with Smart Drive Test talking
to you today about weight compliance for CDL drivers.
This is the first thing that diesel bears are going
to check when you roll over the scale at the chicken house.
And yes, it is your responsibility as the driver
to make sure that you're in compliance
with weights on your big truck.
Stick around, we'll be right back with that information.
(upbeat music)
Welcome back, talking to you today about weight compliance
and yes, this is the responsibility of the driver.
We're going to tell you today where to get weighed.
What kind of freight is going to be heavy on your truck?
And you're going to need to get weighed.
We're going to show you how to make sure
that your axle weights are in compliance
and show you, which one of these items here are important
and which ones are not.
Gross vehicle weight rating is
the overall weight of your truck.
So tandem tandem in Canada and the United States.
This is mostly what we're going to talk about today.
There are exceptions to this in, in Canada
and the United States,
but mostly in North America tandem tandem
is what we're going to be hauling.
Two axles on the back of the truck,
two axles on the trailer.
So overall gross vehicle weight rating is 80,000 pounds
in the United States.
In Canada it's 39,500 kilograms.
It's a bit more in Canada than it is in the States.
You're also going to have to know for
the purposes of truck driving school,
gross combination weight rating.
That's a compliance according to
the federal motor regulations
standards there in the United States.
Net weight is the weight of the freight with its packaging.
So the shrink wrap, the boxes,
anything that it's packaged in.
The straps, the pallets, those types of things,
also sometimes referred to as dunnage.
Anything that helps you to secure the load down.
And then tare weight is just the weight of the freight
without any of its packaging.
So these are some other terms that you need to know,
but this one here is the one that you need to take note of
because you need to know in the States, 80,000 pounds,
in Canada, 39,500 pounds.
If you're hauling Super-Bs or you're hauling a tridem,
which has three axles on the back of a trailer,
then you're going to need to know what
the weights are for those
and the company that you've work for will train you on
that for compliance.
Now, if you're hauling anything more than that
you're going to need an overweight permit
and an oversize permit, particularly in the United States
and your company will take care of that
and all the details will be on it
and they will train you for that.
Bridge law, you need to know what bridge law is.
It's 41 feet between the king pin on the trailer
and the center of the axles at the back of the trailer.
And the reason for bridge law is is
that bridges are engineered so
that they can only hold up so much weight per linear foot
or linear meter.
And you need to have this in place as well.
Otherwise you're not going to be in compliance
with your weights and your axle weights
and those types of things.
Freight that is going to be heavy is going to be liquid,
steel, paper, wood, and produce.
If you're hauling a reefer trailer
or a temperature controlled trailer
and you have a load of apples on it's going to be heavy.
Wood, usually on flat decks.
Paper they will put paper in your trailer
if it's a van trailer.
And steel recycled steel, scrap metal, they will put it on
if they got it on pallets and those types of things
or rolls of steel will be heavy.
And anything juice, bottles of water.
If you're hauling tanker trailers
then all of these are going to be heavy.
And you're going to have to weigh your truck before you get
to the the scale where the DOT officers are waiting for you.
And if you're hauling a flat deck,
usually what they're going to have,
is they're going to have gauges on the air suspension
because as you put more weight on the truck
the amount of air pressure in
the suspension is going to increase.
And you can usually know within about 500 pounds what
the gauges are on your truck and trailer.
And that will give you an indication.
And flat decks, they usually do this because timber mills
and those types of things,
steel mills, and whatnot, or out in the middle of nowhere.
And before you get to a scale, you want to make sure
that you're in compliance.
The United States is fairly simple
in terms of a tandem tandem.
As I said, two axles on the tractor,
two axles on the trailer.
80,000 pounds, including fuel in the freight,
12,000 pounds on the steer axle,
34,000 on the tandems
and 34,000 on the tandems.
This also includes your fuel.
Do not go and get loaded to the maximum amount of weight
that you're allowed on the truck
and have a quarter tank of fuel.
Because if you're driving from California to South Carolina,
it's going to be a long trip if you have to fuel up
and keep it at a quarter tank of fuel for the whole way.
And don't underestimate this
because if you've got tanks that hold 300 gallons of fuel
that's 3000 pounds of fuel on your truck.
And you have to factor
that in for your overall gross vehicle weight.
If you're running in a state that allows you tridem,
they allow 42,000 pounds on the tridem.
And it's going to be 88,000 pounds
overall gross vehicle weight.
In Canada it's 39,500 kilograms on a tandem tandem,
5,500 kilograms on the steer axles,
17 on each one of the tandems.
And if you're running a try them in Canada
most provinces will allow 23,000 kilograms
on your tridem on the back, which gives you
45,500 kilograms overall gross vehicle weight.
And this is what you need to know to be in compliance.
After the freight is loaded on your truck,
you're going to know whether you need to go
and get scaled or not
because you're going to know it's heavy.
It's paper,
it's liquid,
juice,
timber, whatnot.
Where do I find a scale?
If you ask at the shipper that loaded your truck
where there's a scale
they will be able to tell you where you can find a scale.
Now, these are the places that you can usually find a scale.
Definitely at truck stops.
Quarries will have scales,
salvage yards,
public scales, these are rare, but you can find them.
Logging mills,
recycling depots,
places that they recycle paper and whatnot will have scales.
And then of there's the DOT scales.
If the scale's not open, they leave the scale on for you.
So you can go over, run over the scale
and know whether you're in compliance or not.
So these are the places that you can find scales.
There's going to be two types of scales.
Most of the scales at the truck stops are going
to be CAT scales.
They're going to be axle weights
and an overall gross vehicle weight.
So when you pull your truck onto the scale,
they're going to weigh each one of the axles
and they'll give you the weight.
And you'll know whether you're in compliance
for axle weights and overall gross vehicle weight.
Those are the easiest.
And so you pay a fee usually at the CAT scales.
It's $15 or $20 for your first way.
And then after that,
it's going to be a percentage of that for your reweigh.
So it's going to be less.
The company does pay for this, okay?
You don't pay for this as a driver.
If you're an owner operator then yes,
you do pay to get weighed,
but that's part of running your business.
Then if you figure out
that your overall vehicle weight is correct,
but you've got too much weight on the trailer
then what you need to do is you need to slide
the tandems back on the trailer
to move some of the weight up onto the back of the truck.
Now, in all my years of experience,
you can slide the fifth wheel plate on
the back of the tractor,
but I've never had to do that to adjust weight.
The only time I've had to move
the fifth wheel plate on the tractor is to make sure
that the dollies on the trailer don't bang into
the mud flaps and tear them off on the back of the truck.
Other than that, for weight compliance
it's always been moving the axles on the trailer.
You move them back to put weight on the trailer.
You move them forward to put more weight on the trailer.
And oftentimes you'll have to either mess with that.
Now they'll have pins on here.
Each one of these pins is approximately 500 pounds.
So you're going to have to move it back and forwards.
Do not adjust your axles on the scale.
Go off the scale, adjust these
and then go back on and do your reweigh.
Truck stops and DOT scales are going to be axle weights.
These other places are all going
to be platform scales for the most part.
To get your axle weights on a platform scale.
Before you pull onto the scale,
go in and talk to the weight master,
figure out how much it's going to cost you
and tell him or her that you need axle weights.
And what you'll do is you'll pull on
with just the tractor.
You'll weigh the steer axles,
and then you'll pull on with just the truck,
you'll weigh the truck.
The weigh master will tell you to pull on
and then you'll wait the entire unit.
Then you'll pull off the scale.
You'll go in.
The weigh master will give you three weights.
They'll give you the steer axle weights.
They'll give you the weight of the tractor.
And then they'll give you the weight of the whole truck.
And you have to do a simple bit of math to be able
to figure out your steer axle.
You already have your steer axle by itself.
Cause you weighed this by itself.
And then for the tandems on the truck
you take the second weight
and subtract the first weight from that
to get your truck tandems.
And then to get your trailer tandems,
you take the third weight and you subtract
the second weight from that third weight
to get your trailer tandems.
And that's how you figure out axle weights
on a platform scale at,
which is going to be most of these here except
the truck stop and the DOT scales.
I went over this fairly quickly.
I have a short course less than $10 over
the Smart Drive Test website
click the link up in the corner.
You can go over there and sign up for that course.
And that will give you exercises
to figure out what your axle weights are
and how to figure this out.
And more details about all of this, where to find scales.
What happens if you're hauling flat decks
and those types of things.
So it's a really good course.
Save you money so that you don't get a ticket
at the DOT scale.
Because remember, if you get a fine for being overweight
or your axle weights are not in compliance,
the fine goes to you, not the company.
The only thing the company pays for is for you
to weigh your truck.
They don't pay for the weight.
And you may even get fired if you have freight on here
and it has to be moved
and they have to call a crane out to the scale house
because oftentimes if the freight has to be adjusted
or moved on the truck or trailer,
or if you're driving just a straight truck
then that charge could go to you
and you could definitely be fired.
We had this happen a few times
when I was working at a flat deck company hauling timber,
that they had to haul cranes out and bring another truck out
to put the excess weight onto another truck.
All of this costs thousands and thousands of dollars.
So be in compliance,
head over to the Smart Drive Test website
and sign up for that course.
And get a certificate at the end
that you took this course on weight compliance,
another feather in your cap
when you're going to apply for jobs.
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Have a great day.
Bye now.