How did I know my home state of Georgia would have to be one of the first to generate a story of someone doing something foolish during International Roadcheck. Brought to us by the Georgia Department of Public Safety, we have a log truck driver attempting to move a load of cut timber way over the 84,000-pound limit.
As we can see from the citation, 130,100 pounds was the total weight of the truck, trailer and cargo. Yep, that had to be some wet timber stacked to the tops of the banisters on that trailer. And for those out there saying, “He wouldn’t have known until he scaled,” a good timber operation would have a scale built into their loaders. They measure the amount of hydraulic pressure exerted to lift the material and give you a rough estimate of the weight. Apparently, somebody wasn’t counting the logs going on the trailer.
Now, we have the matter of the mill. Lumber mills, either for 2x4s or ground into chips, have limits of what they’ll take per truckload. And they usually apply fees for overloaded trailers. That way, everyone has a fair share of the timber pile. Is the price of lumber, now half of what it was traded for just two months ago, causing some “outlaw” loads to be snuck around? Like the guy said, “I didn’t think you’d be out this way?”
