These are the exact reasons why. Someone might want to park rather than go over the open scale. If they're trying to get home and the scale is closed, they might just keep going (oh, don't cry about HOS! See how you feel when you're 2 hours from home and coming up against a stupid 10 hour break!). Alternate routes are a good reason, too. If I can take a state route with no weigh station on it rather than go over a weigh station that's open, that's my choice. In most places that's perfectly legal (and sometimes the routing is shorter
). Maybe we need to switch drivers but I don't want to wake up my partner if I don't have to. Maybe I'm deciding where I get my fuel. Maybe I'm deciding which truck stop to go to- like if the one before the scale is nicer, I'll stop there if the scale is open because I'm not losing anything and maybe it will close by the time I get there, but if its closed, I'll keep going because they might open up while I'm parked.
All kinds of reasons.
I've been in that same situation, moe, asking for a long time if the stupid scale is open and no one will answer except the guy saying "if you ran legal, you wouldn't have to worry about it." Who said I'm worried? I'm asking for information. And if you had any cohones, you wouldn't have to suck your thumb (sorry, this is just one of those topics that gets my blood boilling!).
There are some drivers out there who have the nanny mentality. We're all adults and we all make our own decisions. It's like the guy whining that you're in the left lane... like I don't know I can get a ticket for being there. It's one thing to make sure a guy knows there's a fine, it's a whole 'nother thing to act like the hall monitor about it. No one likes the hall monitor- if I get a ticket that's my problem. There are consequences to our decisions- good and bad. And if I decide to to pass on the left in a "no left lane" area that's the risk I take- and I'm not talking about driving like a bat out of hell or driving unsafely- but sometimes you get guys who stay in the right two lanes and are just going slow (blood boiling over again- it's okay, I'm not driving anywhere today...).