Adventures in weighing redux again

(5/20/2012)
I saw the Batmobile today.

The original, I mean. Twin bubble tops, tailfins, and all. Sitting on a flatbed wrecker, passing through the intersection in front of me as I waited for a green light.

In the parking lot on the opposite corner was a sign:

CAR SHOW TODAY!
SEE THE ORIGINAL BATMOBILE!
1/4 MI -- >

That's how I knew I wasn't hallucinating. Making sure of things like that can be reassuring, sometimes.

Last night I picked up a load at one of our terminals. When I got the paperwork, I found two extra items. One was a note from the previous driver, saying the load was heavy but legal. The other was a scale ticket that called him a liar.

According to the scale ticket, the total weight wouldn't get me in trouble.* but the weight on the trailer wheels was more than 250 lbs over the legal limit. Those wheels would have to move back at least one notch. Maybe two.

Trouble is, those wheels were already a good foot further back than the law allowed.

How the previous driver got that trailer past the weigh stations in three states I'm not sure. They're not all open all the time, and the lack of humor varies from station to station anyway. So I suppose he didn't have to be TOO lucky. Just luckier than I ever assume I'll be.

Problem is, I'd picked this load up because that other driver had run out of hours out of hours moving it this far north. And it had to be at the customer's dock by midnight. So if I was going to have the load pulled out of that trailer, rearranged, and put back in at this hour, I was gonna need a real good reason.

And the nearest scale I could find was on the border, about a mile from the first Wisconsin weigh station. And about fifty miles from the terminal.

Sigh.

So I headed north to the truck stop in question, there to learn which note was a lie.

Turns out they both were.

According to the certified scale at that truck stop, my rig was a good ton lighter than the other ticket had said. And the trailer's tandem wheels weren't 250 lbs overweight.

But the truck's drive wheels were too heavy by more than 1500.

This led to all sorts of questions in the back of my mind. Like, how did that guy get THIS though weigh stations in three states? And where the heck did he find a scale that far off? Or was it some kind of a joke?

No matter. i had a correct weight now. And the cure for a nose-heavy trailer is to move the woeels forward. The wheels that were presently too far back to be legal anyway.

Don't you love it when a plan comes together?

A few adjustments and another weighing to make sure it all worked, and I was cruising past the only weigh station between me and the customer.

It was closed, of course.
- - -
*(Assuming, of course, that my truck, with its present load of fuel, weighed no more than his truck with the fuel it was carrying when he scaled. Not always a good bet...)