Our truck and its payload

Updated Mar 24, 2012

I learned today how our truck scales with an 8,000 lbs. load on. Learned by scaling the truck with an 8,000 lbs. load on.

Diane and I drove overnight on a run from California to Dallas, Texas. Around sunrise, I stopped at the Little America truck stop in Flagstaff, Ariz. for a nap. Later, Diane woke up and went inside to freshen up and buy breakfast sandwiches. It dawned on me then to weigh the truck.

We are expediters in this straight truck. The legal payload is about 12,000 lbs. but we tell our carrier 10,000 because loads vary and the weight cannot always be evenly distributed across the axles. That is almost never a problem because the loads we carry seldom exceed 5,000 lbs. In expediting, it is not about the weight of the freight, it is about the speed of the delivery and special care.

Having a rare heavy load (heavy for us, that is) on the truck, I wanted to scale it just to confirm once again that the truck is spec’ed as we say it is. A precise weigh was not needed. If one was, I would have topped off the fuel tanks and waited for Diane to return to the truck. It’s a good thing precision was not needed. Just as the truck was being weighed, a lot lizard (truck stop prostitute) walked across the scale.

The scale ticket came in as expected. We continued the trip after enjoying some tasty breakfast sandwiches and hot hash browns in the truck.