Heres a question that no one has an answer to.

I drive a yard horse for John Deere in Horicon WI. I spend a lot of time pulling trailers down the road from plant to plant with the trailer lifted up and with the tandoms slid all the way back on 53's. If the wrong person comes through town (like the DOT) can he bust me for over height and the tandoms not legal? or is there some kind of stipulation for that because we are working within "interplant"?

 

I would think he could if he wanted to. Does the yardhorse have plates? I dont know, maybe they look at it like farm equipment, no one bothers farmers on the road.

 

Once you leave private property you are fair game.

 

You could be harassed or you could not be harassed, hard to say. You need to check into the local laws around your area.

Here in Maryland we have a law that states that trucks operating from a port less than one mile on public roads moving product to a stockpile location (namely salt) do not have to conform to weight or covering laws. But the trucks need to be insured and tagged in the state of Maryland. Maybe you are operating under a similar odd law?

 

I've wondered that as well.

I suspect the locals look the other way.

Ask your boss, see what he says (then get it in writing!)

By the way, do you hook up the trailer light cord when you go plant-to-plant? I rarely see yard horses even having a light cord (much less using one).

 

I asked the bossman about that, he pretty much said not to worry about it. That doesn't say much if I'm breaking the laws or not. He did say the only thing I would need to worry about getting stopped for is going down the road with the doors open thats just common sense not to do. I don't want to risk one of the doors unlatching and hitting a car parked on the side of the road, or better yet one flying off with the break away hinges.

Anyway, we do have a 3 cord policy, we hook up both airlines and the pigtail even if we move a trailer ten feet or 2 docks over etc... All the horses are licensed for #80,000 even though we can't really gross that with a single axle. Two of the horses are the extended frames and they have tag axles on them but there only rated for #8,000.

 

I doubt that the locals are gonna be giving one of Big John's trucks a whole lot of grief over at Horicon. :wink:
Cecil still there?

 

LOL, ya hes still here. :lol: