I’ll say mine doesn’t ! I triple check all notes and if near what I think is ott we have a weigh bridge next door. So far all it’s taken is a chat and load off but when get chance I wNt up weigh it and see what’s what
eagerbeaver:
Own Account Driver-I drive an 18 tonne reefer for a retail delivery company using roll cages. Are you really saying that my TM has no idea what our vehicles weigh when they leave the depot?Very sweeping statement that!! I noticed you used to work for an electrical retailing company-so did my cousin.
He is a tw*t too.
Unless they’re going over a weighbridge he doesn’t. There ‘might’ be some weights on databases that spit out some figure but unless they take a keen interest or the weight is important the weights are generally inaccurate.
I’ve run grocery fleets doing multi-drop store deliveries and there was never any need to worry about vehicle overloading because to overload an 18 tonner you would need all, typically 30 ish cages, onboard to weigh over 330kg each which means, less the 80kg ish, for the cage, a quarter of a ton on every single cage onboard.
Yes a cage totally full of tins of dog food or soft drinks might go over 330kg, but not masses over, rough rule of thumb on a roll cage is 2lt bottles of pop will weigh about 100kg per layer but, the heavy cages are more than offset by the fact that each drop will have at least one cage that is only half full and there will be loads of bog rolls, cereal and other stuff that weighs nothing so on aggregate you always cube out before grossing out.
During the whole time on the exceptionally rare occasion any vehicle was pulled into a VOSA checkpoint with a weighbridge there was never any issues. Own account is different as there is no competition angle, and the same types goods only are moved. If there was any risk of frequent or significant overloading 26t vehicles would just be unhesitatingly specced.
Similarly, why lots of own account fleets spec 4x2 units, they know, for their typical load profile they will never gross out. Until, they decide to pay the extra insurance and take some newbies on for their first job, then some of the newbies will instantly know the vehicles are overloaded, just by looking at them. 
dcgpx:
Whilst I get on ok with my TM
He doesn’t quite understand weights, why he got job not my problem !But he seems to think I drive a 26t that’s how much I can carry, took a bit to explain unladen and payload etc.
TM generally means CPC holder. 
I would dispute the contention that an 18t vehicle loaded with roll cages from an own account fleet just won’t get near maximum weight. I have weighed out such a vehicle on quite a few occasions from a supermarket RDC to find in the region of 17800 kg. On every occasion although a fridge vehicle, the body length has only been capable of carrying 12 pallets. As for curtain side trailers from another supermarket RDC, it is reasonably common for a 6x2 unit to be required because of the weight.
Certainly the bulk of the work is way below these weights, but both companies find the need for increased carrying capacity.
Great advice from Stevieboy308!
Some weigh bridges are designed to weigh axles I think great bear in skelmersdale is like that.
I drive a 26t and asked the same question when I got it, I used a customers weigh bridge being cheeky and mine came in at 12.5t so giving me 13.5 load, I have since cleared out loads of old chains and shackles from the lockers but still tell the office I can only take 13t to give myself some slack.
The bed on mine and rear ramp contribute a lot of weigh plus it’s a sleeper cab.