Back in the dark ages following a strike @ Liverpool docks a firm I did a bit of work for had a yard full of export containers to shunt into Seaforth & I once (inadvertantly 
) put two 20’ containers on a 40’ trailer and when I pulled up at the gate it ‘zeroed’ their 60 ton weighbridge in my 240 F10!!! Oops 
Ross.
PS, as if I would!!! 
grossed 4t on a 3.5t
looked ok as it was a downplated 407 Merc
Ahem…I had a dream in which: In my last job I had to occasionally backload gypsum from a place that didn’t have weighers on the loading shovels. One time driving back to the factory it did feel somewhat heavy. When I got to the factory it turned out that I was a shade over 10 tonnes over what should have been 60 tonne GVW. It handled ok (as I said, did feel heavy though) and nothing looked obviously amiss…
.
I know someone who was doing road planings with a bulk artic tipper with barn doors and they just kept loading it!. When they went to tip it the hydraulics didn’t want to know!. It ended up with half the load being dragged out with a 360 before they could actually tip. Guess she might of been a tad on the heavy side 
Got sent into the havens at Rotterdam to load an empty fuel bund to bring back to the uk, it was allegedely empty and flushed thru, the said bund was loaded and I noticed that the trailer tyres were a little flat looking, went on to the weightbridge and grossed at 67 ton, yep still full of fuel and so I refused to run with it
Separate occaision went into Antwerp to load big crates of oranges to come back to Lantrisan,full load and i knew she was a bit heavy. back to the uk had my 24 at Folkestone 
ran on a sunday coz i knew Reigate would be shut on to the weighbridge on Monday morning 51 ton oops 
…
When I first started docking 20 yrs ago one of my first jobs was in the timber store loading lorries with Canadian timber, well one day a driver gave me his paperwork and I loaded him up and getting near the end we both agreed it looked heavy so we stopped short and off he went to the weighbridge, he was about 65 tons.
Anyway I made some enquiries and the paperwork had been duplicated so obviously double of everything so took it all off and started again but using one set of paperwork, and did I have the pi.ss taken out of me and still do sometimes.
I knew a guy who managed a van/truck hire business and one customer regularly hired a 7.5 tonne flat for one day every week. After about three months the customer phoned and asked if the hire company had any larger trucks as their customer had doubled the weekly order. When asked what the weight of the order was he replied 15 tonnes! They had been carrying 7.5 tonnes on the 7.5 tonne truck for months!
Is it common then for people to try and overload you?
mickyblue:
Is it common then for people to try and overload you?
Not really, not on bulk tippers anyway. Most places won’t print you a ticket if you’re more than 200kg over, some won’t let you out 10kg over. If you have a serious accident and its found out that you’re a tonne heavy the company that loaded you will get into a world of ■■■■. Weighbridge records have to be saved for 2 years!
Hiya in the 80,s i picked up a 19 ton box from Hull, my truck was a big cam 290 erf pidgeon catcher.
well iam going up the hill on the m62 nr brighouse at 30 mph instead of about 50 and think things are
not good.when i got near to my drop in manchester i knew of a weighbridge that a old mate worked on.
i pulled on the bridge and the pointer was whizzing past 54 tons when he said sod off now before you get
caught… only 22 tons +overloaded. someone must have known as the box was on a late pickup
about 9 45 at night.
i was at Downings brick works in stoke years ago, a millars scania pulled in for 8,000
bricks. he had a fridge van with a 30 length of 2 1/2 in steel plate on the floor(about 18 tons)
and asked for the bricks (20tons)to be put on top of the plate. thats why they run on 1200x20 tyres.
John
FarnboroughBoy11:
I’ve had 72 pallets on me coming out the palletways hub before and 26 of the pallets were tonne bags of aggregate lol, they were all flat so they basically double stacked the bottom deck then filled the top deck as normal. Triple deckers are the way to go!!!
That palletways place is liability, I used to load out of the London hub in greenford when I was on class 2, the amount of times I had to argue with them to get stuff taken off as it was obviously overloaded was unbelievable. They hated me goin there as I wouldn’t take none of their ■■■■.
I picked up 2 machine bedplates 20ftx8ft from halifax,men loading said 10ton each 4.30pm fri afternoon brought them back to bolton up the hill past ainsley top,when i tipped them in oldham mon morning,weighed off at 41ton this is when it was 32 ton cap.I thought the sed atki groaned a bit coming up the hill
regards dave
SwedishSteel:
mickyblue:
Is it common then for people to try and overload you?Not really, not on bulk tippers anyway. Most places won’t print you a ticket if you’re more than 200kg over, some won’t let you out 10kg over. If you have a serious accident and its found out that you’re a tonne heavy the company that loaded you will get into a world of [zb]. Weighbridge records have to be saved for 2 years!
So if I put 1.5t of sand on a transit, he has an accident and is half a ton over, I’m to blame? Not the driver, whose job it is to know his mgw?
I load lots of cars pulling little trailers, how am I to know what is their max weight?
Muckaway:
SwedishSteel:
mickyblue:
Is it common then for people to try and overload you?Not really, not on bulk tippers anyway. Most places won’t print you a ticket if you’re more than 200kg over, some won’t let you out 10kg over. If you have a serious accident and its found out that you’re a tonne heavy the company that loaded you will get into a world of [zb]. Weighbridge records have to be saved for 2 years!
So if I put 1.5t of sand on a transit, he has an accident and is half a ton over, I’m to blame? Not the driver, whose job it is to know his mgw?
I load lots of cars pulling little trailers, how am I to know what is their max weight?
I would say it will be the driver and the company for allowing him to leave whilst knowing he was overloaded
mickyblue:
Is it common then for people to try and overload you?
Some firms are notorious for it. Many of Irish origins from the bigger cities were the worst but then, we have bigger bodies than the lorries they use so we look underloaded. Problem is when machine ops hear you blow the horn but they think they can empty their bucket.
Many sites nowadays expect you to have a weigher, I’ve been told off for climbing up onto the lorry to check the load when I’ve driven an old motor without scales.
Muckaway:
So if I put 1.5t of sand on a transit, he has an accident and is half a ton over, I’m to blame? Not the driver, whose job it is to know his mgw?
I load lots of cars pulling little trailers, how am I to know what is their max weight?
Not you, you’re ‘just’ the shovel driver even if you have a weigher on your bucket. If you load a transit with 100ton it’s the weighbridge operators job to make sure he tips 99 ton off before he’s allowed to leave. If sends him on his way down the road and he kills someone because of the weight the consignor WILL be asked why they let an overloaded vehicle leave their site. Not knowing what weight a vehicle is allowed won’t be a good excuse.
Obviously the driver and his operator will be ■■■■■■ too.
i once picked up a ferry trailer from Felixstowe, loaded with groupage from Holland, the weight gauge on my dashboard in my 4x2 Scania read 18.5tons. It took a while for the airbags to inflate when i picked it up.
9.5 t on a 7.5 t Merc - all the way to Greece via Ancona.
Bit rock’n’roll but seemed to stop OK.
Made heavy weather of the drag from the truck inspection area up to the Mont Blanc tunnel, though!