Overweight Axle on a Legal Gross
You are loading a 53-foot van trailer with pallets of bagged product. The shipper's paperwork shows a total payload that keeps you under the 63,500 kg gross limit for your configuration. However, the pallets are dense and the loader has placed 18 of 26 pallets in the last 6 m of the trailer to speed up loading. Your tractor has a steer axle, a tandem drive group, and the trailer has a tandem. You scale the unit at a certified scale before leaving: gross 61,800 kg, steer 5,600 kg, drives 17,200 kg, trailer tandem 39,000 kg. Your permitted axle limits are 5,500 kg steer, 17,000 kg per tandem group on the drives, and 18,000 kg per tandem group on the trailer. The shipper says the load is legal because the gross is under the limit and asks you to go.
1. Is the load legal? Show the arithmetic and identify every violation.
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No. Gross is legal at 61,800 kg against 63,500 kg, but axle group limits are violated in three places. Steer is 5,600 kg against 5,500 kg, over by 100 kg. Drives are 17,200 kg against 17,000 kg, over by 200 kg. Trailer tandem is 39,000 kg against 18,000 kg, over by 21,000 kg, which is more than double the permitted group weight. The gross figure is meaningless when the weight is in the wrong place; the trailer tandem is carrying nearly two-thirds of the total. This is not a marginal case you can argue at the scale. The trailer axles and tires are being overloaded well beyond their rating, which affects braking, tire heat, and bridge loading. You cannot legally move until the load is redistributed.
2. What do you do next, and what would a proper re-load look like?
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Refuse to move the unit and tell the shipper plainly that the trailer tandem is 21,000 kg over its group limit and that the gross number does not cure it. Ask for the load to be redistributed: move pallets forward so weight sits over the trailer tandems and the drive group, and slide the trailer axles or the fifth wheel only within legal limits. Because the steer is also slightly over, some weight must come off the nose as well, so the fix is spreading the load along the deck rather than shifting it all one way. Re-scale after reloading and keep the ticket. If the shipper will not reload, the load comes off. Document the refusal in writing, including the scale ticket and the axle figures, because that record is your defence if the shipper later claims you departed overloaded.