I crossed into Mississippi earlier this month and saw a sign that read "All Vehicles Over 5 Tons Must Enter Weigh Station Next Right".  It's about a mile or so inside Mississippi from Alabama on the westbound side of I-20.  I thought a good thread to post this may be where those researching buying a rig may have a look and see in this sign, some food for thought.  You can find the sign on Google Street View just before the Port of entry.

Most of us have read posts by those who weigh RVs at shows and tell us that 50%, 60%, or even 70% of those they weighed at a recent show were overweight on one or more Max Weight Ratings.  Now, it actually appears the good people of the Great State of Mississippi may be addressing those overweight numbers.  Hmmmm!  This could be an interesting trend.

I didn't see any RVs pulling into or out of the station.  The station was closed when I drove by.  I've driven across the scales in many Ports of Entry in a big truck and I have known Port Officers to shut down commercial drivers until they became legal.  I have no idea what they might do to a non-commercial Class-A or Class-B driver.  It's probably safe to say we just don't want to find out the hard way.  Remember, it's the placard numbers that are important here, not what someone else tells you is okay.

IMHO, it's time we non-commercial Class-A and Class-B drivers are held to a higher standard for safety reasons.  We should understand the safety issues and know better.

Happy Trails,

Dave

I believe that unless it is specifically posted that recreational vehicles must weigh, they really don't want us there. Many States are putting in weighing systems that let the vehicles weigh in motion, either at a slow speed in the weigh station area or at cruising speeds on the highway. The idea seems to be that they don't want to slow down the majority who are legal, but they do want to catch the few who aren't. As a practical matter, we have a 1993 Foretravel U300, which means that it has a GVWR of 30,000 pounds. The U280 looks exactly like ours, but has a different engine/transmission combination and has a GVWR of 28,000 pounds. To add to the confusion, Foretravel also made the U225 and U240 then. Those coaches look very much like ours, but there are subtle differences. They have GVWR of 22,500 and 24,000 pounds, respectively. How is the weigh station officer going to know which is which, unless they actually enter my coach to look at the placard? There is NO way the weigh in motion system is going to know. I agree that we need to be vigilant about our weights, but sending us through the commercial scales isn't really going to help anything.

I sent an email to the Mississippi Port Authority asking if RVs were expected to pull into the Ports of Entry and cross the scale. I'll post their reply here when and if I get something from them.

There are several ways to be overweight, but the roadside scales only check to see if you have exceeded your CGVWR and/or exceeded the GVWR of any single axle. Being overweight in other ways really doesn’t “count”. To illustrate (theory only😉) ... assume your tow vehicle has a GVWR of 14,000 lbs. Your 5th wheel has a GVWR of 15,000 lbs (with 8,000 lbs axles). Using these two numbers, as long as you don’t weigh more than 29,000 lbs combined, you are good. If your “ready to tow” truck weight was 9,000 lbs and your trailer was overweight by 2,000 lbs (17,000 lbs) your total weight on the scale is 26,000 lbs ... which is 3,000 lbs under your 29,000 CGVWR. Even with an overweight trailer, there will be no trouble with a roadside scale. In this example, the pin weight is 4,000 lbs ... leaving 13,000 to be carried by the axles of the trailer. This results in every axle (truck front axle, truck rear axle and trailer axles) to be under their published ratings. Meaning still “legal” ... even with an overweight trailer. This is not an advice piece, just an information piece to flesh out the “weight” issue.

-- Edited by RonC on Thursday 20th of February 2020 04:22:42 PM

The only scales that I have ever had experience with were portable scales carried by the state's state police.  If the scales at an inspection station are weighing at the point when ALL of the rig is on the scales, all they would be getting would be full gross weight.  Not being a commercial rig, I would think that one would have to first go into the "office" and provide weight information to the officers before crossing any scales.  Otherwise, they would never know what one's rig was supposed to weigh.  With RV's having different axle weight ratings (7,000 or 8,000 or 9,000 lbs) they would need to know before weighing.

That is different from commercial rigs where they generally know the "licensed" weight of the rig.  I'm not so sure they would want to mess with RV's and their differences.

That, of course, would depend entirely upon those doing the weighing.

Terry

That's just like the signs that say "All trucks must enter weigh station." They don't mean all trucks, just all commercial trucks. Many years ago I entered a weigh station in a large U-haul because the sign said "all trucks" and I was driving a big truck, moving my household goods from coast to coast and unfamiliar with the procedure. The weigh station guy just shook his head at me, obviously annoyed, and waved me through. Chip