How Many Units Of Request Does It Take Towing Rite?

And People wonder why no one wants to drive for a living anymore. I have driven semi’s going on 26 years and it just keeps getting worse and worse. I can’t wait for the day I can finally get out of the truck. Not because I don’t love trucking because I do its all of the government over stepping the boundaries saying its about safety when its getting more and more unsafe out here every day. Its all about revenue and control and disguised as a safety issue.

You want to hear something funny. I was a paramedic for 12+ years working private EMS. We did not have to comply with any of that stuff. No commercial licenses, no DOT physicals, no drug testing, no commercial DOT numbers, fuel stickers. We had a 2 hour CEVO driving class and that was it to run “Hot”. Same thing with the fire guys. They are running those Engines, Tankers, and Ladders with absolutely no regulations and very little training.

Have question. Because the Weight class of a vehicle has nothing to do with commercial. Commercial applies if the vehicle is making money. The weight class of a vehicle has more to do with the class of your drivers license. That’s where non-CDL license and CDL license come in to play. Because here’s an example you can have your regular class C license drive a vehicle that weighs no more than 3000 pounds but because you’re using it to make money to escort oversize trucks you are required to have a DOT number on the side of it. PS and in New York you have to have a escorting certificate to be legal to escort oversize vehicles as well as a DOT number. And because you have that DOT number you still have to log your mileage and state lines log your hours.

Love how you edited the various decals onto the door. Trooper Hoover is great, seems like he has a fair amount of teaching experience too. I disagree with Christy, you should not have bought an F250, you should have bought a Tundra. That’s a joke, the F250 is a great truck, but I do love my Tundra. Should have bought an orange one though. (Wink!)

If you are a new commercial semi owner. I am not but have been curious about this forever. Do you have to have an IFTA sticker on the semi for every state you travel in or just a sticker from your home state? The truck would be a mess of green stickers and no room for the name of the company if you had to put the IFTA on there for every state you travel through.

INYS DOT Inspections are over the top! In the past I had a trooper spend 40min trying to find a violation with a brand new dump truck. He ended up writing a ticket for unsecured load over a igloo lunch box on the passenger side floor. The worst part the judge wouldn’t throw the ticket out. It cost $300 for that lunch box. That was it for me shortly after the trucks and trailers went off the e road. Now I just pay an independent to move my equipment. It is a pita at times because I cant always get where I want to be in the time frame I want. I’m fine with the decision however it’s a lot less stress. As for material delivery, no one in my area has ever been able to compete with the local pit for delivery. They deliver cheap and charging any less than what they charge for delivering the product they produce would be a loss. It shouldn’t have to be this way. I understand legitimate safety issues but things like $180 for every oil spot under the truck – ridiculous!

There is one more regulation for the fire extinguisher: It has to be secured. If you travel in multiple states, there is a nice piece of software called “Trucking Office” that using a device like Garmin will automatically track miles by state and will prepare the IFTA returns for you. Here’s the deal, as I understand it, you fuel up in a state with a HIGH diesel tax but only drive 10 miles and then drive 300 miles in a state with a LOW diesel tax but buy no fuel. You will get a “refund” from the first state and “pay” tax in the second state. The tax is apportioned among the states based on miles driven and tax paid. Simple? No! BUT those ELD’s that the drivers hate do a good job of doing a lot of the calculations. We operate, I would guess, in more than 15 states. Done by hand, the IFTA returns would take easily 5 – 6 hours. Now with the software it takes 15 minutes.

Now you know what we go through every year just to keep moving freight. Do you go by any scales because you will need to stop at everyone that is open. Plus you get the joys of the csa score any violations will go on that for two years. And make sure every t is crossed because not all dot officers are as nice as he is. Do oh need to get a electric logging device?

So, you get your truck inspected one day. A week later something goes amiss on the truck that you have no clue about. Bingo, ticket time. I can understand someone pulling 15 tons or so, these laws are sometimes money makers. If your not a mechanic, then, well…. I used to live in Illinois, for a while there they did away with pickup truck inspection. There’s just to many variables for the average Joe. Just my opinion. I used to be a mechanic.

But 90yr olds driving 40′ Rv’s and hicks hauling 30′ horse trailers to go camping are all off the hook. They are much more dangerous than someone hauling a bobcat with an f-350. It really makes me mad to think about. I’ve seen people with huge pull behind campers that can’t even back them up safely. Oh, also don’t forget your required DOT physical. I didn’t hear that mentioned.

Then you get to pay someone to have you as part of a drug consortium so you can do DOT required random drug testing. Then you get to keep up with your driver files, daily inspections and hours of duty status, and don’t forget your medical card. Gonna need a Class A CDL if that truck and trailer combo GVWR goes over 26,0000lbs AND the trailer is rated for more than 10,000lbs.

Coming from the enforcement side and transitioning into the private hotshot industry, I get the govt regulations. I know it’s a lot and I don’t agree with the many regulations but the trooper was cool, honest and transparent. Many agencies don’t allow their troopers to do articles like this. Thank you for the information and love the Bible verse at the end. God bless.

My chevy 3500hd has a gvw of 13,000. Even though it is titled as a non comercial vehicle i still had to get the following. A physical card DOT inspection A sign that say NOT FOR HIRE. Traveled threw West Virginia and was pulled over for a DOT. Also had to get a State inspection. Most states do not consider a toyhauler trailer an RV. You will get pulled over.

So I have a 2012 Chevy Silverado 3500HD that has been derated through a special order with GM. The VIN sticker in the door shows a GVWR of 10,000 lbs. I am looking to start a car, motorcycle and cargo transporting business. I plan to use an aluminum trailer rated 10,000 lbs. The GCVWR of the truck is 20,500 lbs. I will be based in Alabama but I may travel to MS, TN, KY, NC and SC. Do I need the DOT stickers? Do I need to stop at weight stations?

I have a 3500 dually I use to pull my skid-steer. its on a trailer rated at 17000llbs. the skid-steer with bucket weighs 12000lbs. this is really my personal wheelbarrow since I’ve had 3 back surgeries. the only time its put on the trailer is to take it in for service. I’ve never made a dime with it. I wonder where this falls according to the law. I’m a retired pipe welder.

§383.91 Commercial motor vehicle groups. (a) Vehicle group descriptions. Each driver applicant must possess and be tested on his/her knowledge and skills, described in subpart G of this part, for the commercial motor vehicle group(s) for which he/she desires a CDL. The commercial motor vehicle groups are as follows: Combination vehicle (Group A)—Any combination of vehicles with a gross combination weight rating (GCWR) of 11,794 kilograms or more (26,001 pounds or more) provided the GVWR of the vehicle(s) being towed is in excess of 4,536 kilograms (10,000 pounds). Heavy Straight Vehicle (Group B)—Any single vehicle with a GVWR of 11,794 kilograms or more (26,001 pounds or more), or any such vehicle towing a vehicle not in excess of 4,536 kilograms (10,000 pounds) GVWR. Small Vehicle (Group C)—Any single vehicle, or combination of vehicles, that meets neither the definition of Group A nor that of Group B as contained in this section, but that either is designed to transport 16 or more passengers including the driver, or is used in the transportation of hazardous materials as defined in §383.5. Maybe I misunderstood, but you don’t need a CDL if you vehicle is over 10,001 pounds. It must be more than 26,001 pounds, or if you are towing more than 10,001 pounds to require a CDL class A that is. With that said, the newer half ton trucks are capable of hauling several thousand pounds more than 10,001 pounds, so you would still need a CDL if your hauling thoughts kind of loads for profit.

Trooper Hoover stated in the previous article that you would be considered commercial if using the vehicle was your “primary source of income”, not true! If you are towing ANYTHING that can or does make you money, according to the trooper that pulled over my buddy with a horse trailer, then you are required to have a CDL and DOT numbers on your vehicle. That trooper did not mention if the power unit was over 10,001 or not, but if the combined weight is over 26,000, potential, then you are also required to have the previously mention license and numbers. You could have a 9,800# truck and a 17,000# RATED trailer, even if it’s empty, and need the CDL.

There is a lot of gray area in northern Indiana and all over USA regarding those pick up truck drivers who are delivering campers from a manufacturer to dealerships nationwide. Carriers who these pick up truck drivers lease on to are allowing the drivers to remove the DOT placards, log off duty, and tells them to bypass weigh stations, etc. How does this work legally if the trucks weight is over 10,001 lbs and the fact there is a lease agreement on the truck as a CMV? Maybe you could do a segment specifically about one way camper haulers in pick up trucks? Thanks.

So what constitutes a “commercial” vehicle? If I drive to Florida to buy and pick up a car I’m buying for my personal use, hauling it on a trailer and pulling it with this very same truck. Does this constitute a “commercial” vehicle since I’m not doing any work for any business, personal use only? To my knowledge, as long as it isn’t being used in a business or commercial setting, none to the federal DOT rules apply to the vehicles. Correct?

In Florida The DOT never bothers Bus drivers at Walt Disney World. It helps being self insured and that you can give away Park tickets and discount room rates to any politician or office holder in the state. Mechanics always sign off on unrepaired stuff every day Lights, suspension, mirrors. Whatever..

Trooper Hoover forgot the authority to operate in a given state which has to be registered for if you are operating state to state. This is a different payment up front for each state and then you pay for the mileage accrued in each state that you drive thru. Some states get you on the fuel tax when you buy diesel in that state and some get you on the mileage you use in the state.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve driven thru a DOT checkpoint and there is always two or three f250 sized pickups with a skid loader, small excavator or tractor on a trailer getting a their day ruined and also a huge fine. It’s always a great idea to know your gross weight, and if you are registered and legal to pull that amount of weight.

Gvwr is the potential. My 350 is around 7000lbs. You would have to load the inside of your truck and bed to get to 11000lbs. Who the hell does that. My truck is never 11000lbs. Just another bs they feed you. I don’t do any of this bs. And you’re under 26000 you don’t need a ifta or eld and if you’re with in 12 hrs of your home terminal you don’t need an eld.

So if I have a 9200 GVWR pickup towing a 7000 GVWR trailer with my SCUT… For personal use only – I’m good to go? Even interstate? And if I accept money for a job I’m using the tractor for on someone else’s property – I’m considered commercial and have to jump through all the USDOT hoops? And if I’m over 26000 combined – I need a CDL regardless? Is this correct?

So if you get a tow vehicle with a GVWR just under 10,000 lbs., 9,999 lbs. you don’t need a DOT number or comply with any of this. “Stuff”, if you stay under 26,000 lbs. combined GVWR, “power unit” lol er pickup truck with a box, towing a flatbed gooseneck trailer, even if you’re for hire? And you can bypass all the weigh stations legally? Am I getting that right?

Victor Gregg’s autobiography “Rifleman” includes his experiences during Snipe- he is the last survivor of the engagement. He later joined the Parachute Regiment and was captured at Arnhem and he was also in Dresden when it was bombed. A new edition was released for his 100th birthday and it is a remarkable life story culminating in his activities when the Iron Curtain fell.

I can’t believe as a big history fan that it’s taken me until now to discover this website! I’ve been seriously binging on articles for the last 24 hours and this is now THE best history website I’ve ever come across. Lindy is just brilliant at recounting these stories and even his multiple digressions keep me riveted. So much variety in terms of subject too. I’ve just come from perusal “The white headhunter” to some of these WW2 articles. I absolutely LOVE it. 👌👍

Funny thing about the whole snipe hunting thing, when I was in the boyscouts the scout leaders took us on a few snipe hunts when I was really young and they described a snipe as kind of a brow haired mammal about the size of a skunk that lived high up in trees. I always thought that they had just made the whole thing up and that a snipe was just some fictional animal that had been made up for this kind of thing. so its pretty funny to learn that a snipe is actually a thing and you know … a bird.

My uncle Lewis, 6th Field Regiment, was there when the six miles of Montgomery’s guns turned night into day at the battlefield of El Alamein. As a child growing up uncle Lewis would speak of places far away with names like Benghazi, Mingar Qaim, Ruweisat Ridge, and Mersa Matruh. Uncle Lewis was in on all the big battles in the desert war. Lewis a soldier whose war record documents are still sealed. Hopefully one day Lewis war will be told. R.I.P. LEWIS.

That was rivitting! Thank you. At the beginning, it was merely interesting, but MAN did it get good. And I had no idea snipes were real, because in the U.S., hunting them is not meant to be character building but a reason to make a joke out of the poor guy sent to on one. Your conversion of miles to kilometers, on the other hand . . . Well, to two sig figs, it’s fine. But since you went all out, your last two digits are off. It should be 2.414 016, not 025. Alternatively, it’s also 2 6,469/15,625. TEA!

I remember “snipe hunting” as a prank and in a way like a right of passage, I remember was around 9 when I was told to hide in the bushes while they took the flashlights and tried to scare them my way and I was supposed to catch one, next thing I knew I was alone in the woods at night, I fell victim to one of the classic blunders.

The experience of a “snipe hunt” as an American kid: You were taken out in the dark with an empty pillow case, and left alone. You were told to hold the pillow case open, low to the ground, and yell “Snipe! Snipe!” This was supposed to lure the snipe into the sack.What exactly a snipe was, was left to the imagination. I imagined it as being a long weaselly creature. Your friends, who supposedly had left you alone, were a short distance away, perusal, repressing laughter and waiting to see how long you would yell “snipe!” in the dark before giving up.

12:20 “Hey, we already took these busses. Get your own way to surrendering.” – Italian Surenderers to each other. 19:15 Reminds me of a report I read a while ago: “America did not loose a single tank in Iraq to enemy fire.” That is oddly specific 😉 31:05 Basic Overpenetration. They say it happens to 1 out of 5 hits 😀 The shrapnel propably still killed a few of the wounded. 32:15 If you do not got a decent HE shell, then infantry is indeed very scary. As for “seeing” the enemy: You already said movement threw up a lot of dust. If there is a lot of dust just beind that last hill but no sound of tank engines? Propably Infantry. Time to send in the Battle Taxis! 37:00 So the M13 was used as a distraction? Well, they certainly could do that! 39:30 Exactly because it was so dangerous to move around there, they had such a defensive position. But exactly because it was so hard to move around there no relieve, extraction or resupply cound happen. 44:10 Knives. If you need it released quickly, you just cut the straps. Gravity will get it down. 51:00 If you got overpenetrations, that is rather important for your gun-crew. Overpenetratons tend to not knock out the enemy you were aiming at. 51:45 “They are more scared of you, then you are of them!”

Interestingly enough, the 75 mm gun used on the Sherman, Churchill and Cromwell actually did better in high explosive tests (looking at radius and number of pieces of “lethal or disabling” shrapnel) than the 90 mm gun that was put on later US tanks. The 75 was a jolly good gun when it came down to all round performance. And another advantage the 6 pdr had over the anti tank guns that are around that 3 inch mark; it was smaller, and therefore easier to hide. Very important for an anti-tank gun.

Ha!! “leager” “laager”. I remember having this argument with my instructors as a new armoured corp recruit. We still “leager up” as an admin/ tactical drill. When I first heard the word leager, I questioned it and asked that surely they meant laager, but no. Somewhere in commonwealth tactical doctrine the word laager, became leager. All our doctrine books use the word leager. I assume that’s how you spell it, it’s been 40 years since I’ve heard that word.

My Uncle Alf was in the Artillery in North Africa said they’d had to use their 25 pounders over open sights when they got ordered to be antitank and that they’d knocked over, toppled, some of the enemy tanks, guessing maybe lighter ones like the Italians? And that he wished he and his mates, young lads, hadn’t let their curiosity get the better of them and go look at what their shells had done…bounced around inside the enemy tanks and left the men as literal mincemeat…. he had lot of sympathy for the Italians he also said they LOVED their 6 pounders! 😉 huge improvement over the 2 pounder, “Useless f***ing spud gun!” as he said iirc lol and they set them up in triangles, like 2 spread fingers with one gun in the web of the “V”, so that anyway the enemy turned they could get a broad side hit, but, they sometimes THEY had to fire to get the enemy attention to make them line up right, or the first guys to open fire in any case usually got blown/shot to hell :/ antitank gunners had a short life on average He got buried alive twice by counter battery fire, so I guess he was back in regularly artillery role then? and he was only survivor of his pals on at least one of those occasions (he was Scots but his comrades were all Indian on one of those occasions, sorry was long time ago so I can’t recall everything, he died when I was about ten, he was a right character, lol!) He also said, for his experiences, Alamein wasn’t the worst, not nearly, he said another battle was much much worse, pure hell But I can’t recall what one cause I was just a kid, might have been Mersa Matruh or Sidi Barani?

I read somewhere that when the Germans took over Italian troops gave them better weapons (though of course not the best the Germans had), a bit more training, and better leadership they fought as well as most troops. In both WWI and WWII the Italians seemed to suffer from poor leadership and poor preparation.

Just realised that even though I have the notification bell for everything this website puts out, but alas YouTube still wasn’t notifying me. I just randomly thought hmm haven’t seen anything from Lloyd in quite a while and I went to his website and saw four articles I was never notified about. I reset the notifications so we’ll see if that remedies the situation. But any way yet another great article, buts that’s no surprise they always are. He is honestly one of the most interesting people I’ve ever seen I’d love to share a few pints and play some wargames with him

Eh LB, about the shell over-penetrating a Panzer III and hitting the next one behind him, remember that a shell can penetrate a tank and deal damage inside, damage that might not be obvious from the outside unless fuel or ammo are struck. While a shell, can also fail to penetrate the armor of a tank, and give a spectacular effect on the outside, but not much damage on the inside. You see that a lot in relatively modern shells like with HEAT ammo and ATGM missiles (they use the same principle). Inside the tank, it may send the turret flying, or it might fail to do any visible damage (if the tank is empty, out of fuel and ammo). But if the shells explodes outside the shell, you get a big boom. But seconds later, the tank is still moving, and maybe even firing and maneuvering.

Italian tanks type m13/40 had 45 mm of frontal armor, very much comparable with the 50 mm of panzer 4, so I would not call it “thin paper armor”. The problem was that it was bolted, but as for thickness, it was an average medium tank for the time it was built. The idea that it was rubbish spread later in the war, when brits made new tanks and italians kept the same. But at the beginniing of the war, they were totally comparable to other medium-with bolted armor -with thin armor british tanks. Also the idea that Italian army was a joke was spread on purpose by allied propaganda to boost morale of the troops (and that of people in homeland), especially in the later stages of the war when allied casualties were hitting a hard toll. Italian army was no doubt inferior to the germans, Exactely as almost anyone, from a quality point of view, was inferior to the germans. It was not worse than French, polish and, in early stages of the war, it gave a hard time to british too (who in the end proved superior, but not as much as most people like to think). One noticeable thing is that many Italian soldiers liked to surrender in mass and this proves the different frame of mind related to the hardcore german nazi troops who fought till the last man. And being the grandson of one of those surrendered soldier, I say thanks to God they did!

Loving the asides on “snipe” and “wet.” When I was in the Royal Yeomanry – there were far too many ‘wet’ officers for my liking – you missed the bit about them tending to look like lanky greasy flop-haired pieces of p**s and are not often all that bright! 😁 Story: Eventually I was in a reconnaisance squadron driving Boot Troop around in my Spartan APC, but before that was driving a Fox and had the squadron 2nd Lt. on board (I still shudder when I remember you, Miles) – slightest sign of trouble, transfer lever in reverse, and heading backwards before we even saw the target! Still, with the Fox being petrol-powered, I suppose it was for the best. One round through the fuel tank and 🔥…😀 Should’ve seen him leg-it though when we flipped turret-down on an exercise one day – he leapt-out before the thing went over, leaving me and the gunner trapped inside. We had to crank the body around on the turret gears so the gunner could get our of my driver’s hatch and not burn to death!! (Less said about the boiling water coming out of the BV…..!!) We were yelling for help. Where was Miles? Behind the bank that flipped us (I told him the track was unsafe – four tonner tracks were wider than our dainty Fox. Going round the bank, we slipped from the high rut to the low one, and over we went!)! What a git!!!

When you first said snipe I thought it was a misdirection. The American tradition of snipe hunting is usually meant to be a prank. You take someone at night to “hunt snipes”. From here it varies person to person, but the one I knew, you would give someone a bag and a sturdy stick, and lead them out into the middle of the woods, “split up” and then just leave, and so they’d be out alone in the woods looking for snipes (unsuccessfully of course) while they went “snipe snipe snipe!” In a high pitched voice because “that’s their mating call” while everyone else laughs it up back home or at the campsite. I didn’t even know it was a real bird until recently, and you don’t hunt them with a bag and a stick of course lmao.

There was no “almost certainly fail” It was just a joke when I was in Boy Scouts. We always took the younger scouts, and myself when I was the younger scouts, on a Snipe Hunt there were never any snipes to be found, I don’t think they were even native to my region. I didn’t know until today they were actually a real bird

The 6 Pounder firing its APDS round was probably as good as the Panther gun shooting a standard capped round…. Once the Panther is firing Composite Rigid shots though its not even a comparison. The standard capped ammo for the 6 pounder was still good enough to punch through the front of a Tiger at 500m. But it was certainly a BIG mistake not equipping SOME of the Cromwells with 6 pounders to deal with Tigers whilst the 75mm Cromwells fought infantry and arty. (or build more A30 Challengers).