I may have mentioned this but want to get some more imput. When I was in MD at the weigh station , they had pulled in a fellow that was driving a Dodge dually with a 3 /4 car wedge. He was not loaded but thet put him OOS for not having a Class A CDL. The officer dealing with me was not handling the other case but kept commenting on the bad attitude of the driver and how he was about to get the handcuffs if he didn't calm down. Anyway I know for a fact several guys that carry cars on this setup , not under their own authority , but none the less the same set up. According to the officer , You are suppose to have a Class A for any combination vehicle that has a GVW over 10,000. He said this applies to everyone, if this is true how can these other get away with this . My friend in SC goes thru weigh stations all the time , he has no CDL whatsoever , Has a 2006 Dodge Dually, with a wedge and is tagged fro 30000 or 32000 lbs.
Class A -- Any combination of vehicles with a GVWR of 26,001 or more pounds provided the GVWR of the vehicle(s) being towed is in excess of 10,000 pounds.
Key here is not GVW but GVWR. If he was, as you say "tagged fro (sic) 30000 or 32000 lbs", he does indeed need a class A CDL, no question about it. Letter of law, no argument.
How can the others "get away with it"? Just like I did for about 3 years, I was running a route that did not have any scales/weigh station and did not get caught. When I did get caught, luckily I was not put OOS at the time and was only written a warning and told to get legal before I headed out again.
As for the attitude, the driver's attitude may well have been the difference between a ticket and allowed to continue and being place out of service!
Additionally, I believe the 10,000lbs combination thing is for DOT Number, log book required (if less than 100 air miles) and applies if crossing a state line.
He told me he had to keep logs , and is for hire which would indicate to me he should have a Class A , plus tha fact that he is tagged for the 30 or 32 thousand . He does in fact go thru weigh stations all the time . I had asked him about his experience and he told me he was inspected a few times but never put out of service. He runs SC, NC, GA and sometimes TENN. Seems to me they would have put him out of service for not having a CDL . Weird ! They sure did put that fellow in MD out of service. I agree on the attitude thing , as a matter of fact the officer that was attending to me commited that this guy needed to cool down because he was dealing with his captian who was not very forgiving in the first place.
There used to be a chart in the fmcsa handbook, that should the various configurations, which required a "Class A" cdl. the 26,001# configuration was one, there was (or is) also a configuration that stipulated a combination of "over 53 feet in total length"(which would include most pickups pulling trailers that carry multiple cars....don't have the book handy...not interested to researching it right now.
Yep Orange, I don't care to look it up either. BTW I could go for a strong cup of coffee and about 4 advils as well. Ibuprophen is my fav drug , next to coffee
