Nys DOT what I learned

[300jk]

Any truck and trailer combination over 26,000 pounds requires a class A license. Does not matter if for commerce or not. This includes pickups with large 5th wheel travel trailers. Weight is determined by the manufacturer sticker on truck and trailer. It does not go by the registered weight. Basically as long as under 26,000 pounds anyone with a class d license can pull that combination. As far as large motorhomes. If over 26,000 pounds a special R endorsement is required. To get that endorsement you need to take a road test in your motorhome, or one over 26,000 pounds. If pulling a trailer behind the motorhome that puts you back to needing a class A license. These according to the officers are the laws here in Nys. They also stated they do not rarely if ever bother with travel trailers, motorhomes, or people with any type of recreational trailer. They are mostly after people operating for commerce. Anyone out making money with their truck and trailer is commerce. They said people always try to bs them on it and fail. They said occasionally they pull over someone doing work for themselves at a property they own or for a friend/relative but that is almost never the case. They said when a truck has Not For Hire on it a red flag goes up. The officers said people put that on their vehicle thinking they won’t get pulled over or stopped but the officers said they pull them over all the time and find that they are using the vehicle and or trailer to make money. So basically stay under 26,000 pounds, don’t use it to make money, and remember what your registered for means diddly. There are all kinds of endorsements for farm vehicles and licensing. Biggest thing they said that stuck with me was - most people will never get pulled over by Dot with a travel trailer, motorhome, or recreational trailer. Where the problem lies if there ever was an accident with someone driving out of class the lawyers would be all over it with huge lawsuits. Just something to think about. They spewed out a lot more info and my head was swimming by the time they were done. I just thought I’d share a few things. Most probably covered by John and others in the previous thread.

 

[caterpillar guy]

And again ask 10 Ny DOT and get 10 different answers from them.

 

[jwal10]

Here up to 26,000, no CDL. 26,001 up or anything with air brakes needs CDL and air brake certificate. City bought used State F-550 with 4 yard box to keep clear with E plate. Regular pickup plate and trailer no CDL. Commercial plate on pickup and over 26,000 CGVW needs CDL....James

 

[john in la]

One day if I preach it long enough some of you might realize that “not for hire “ does not mean you are not a business.
For hire is someone that hauls someone else’s fright like me paying you xx per mile to haul my tractor.
Not for hire is basically a private carriage. The business that owns the truck owns all the freight on the truck. Wal Mart is a not for hire carrier. They only haul stuff owned by Wal Mart.

So putting not for hire on the door of your truck is basically saying I am a business I just don’t hire out my hauling.

What gets me is you guys think the rules we have today are bad.
Those of us that can remember the side of a truck plastered with fuel stickers from every state and bingo cards know the rules we have today are nothing.

 

[300jk]

One day if I preach it long enough some of you might realize that “not for hire “ does not mean you are not a business.
For hire is someone that hauls someone else’s fright like me paying you xx per mile to haul my tractor.
Not for hire is basically a private carriage. The business that owns the truck owns all the freight on the truck. Wal Mart is a not for hire carrier. They only haul stuff owned by Wal Mart.

So putting not for hire on the door of your truck is basically saying I am a business I just don’t hire out my hauling.

What gets me is you guys think the rules we have today are bad.
Those of us that can remember the side of a truck plastered with fuel stickers from every state and bingo cards know the rules we have today are nothing.

John I understand completely. What the officers were saying was that trucks with not for hire on them helped them skirt the dot rules. Not so ! The Dot officers said many many offenders were landscape contractors who registered their truck and trailer just barely under the legal 26,000 limit. They said they have written numerous tickets because it’s not the registered weight. Most people don’t get that . Dot or not.

 

[BarnyardEngineering]

And again ask 10 Ny DOT and get 10 different answers from them.

11 different answers.

 

[will-max dairy]

I have a childhood friend with a CDL and legal trucks/trailers to haul almost anything.

Threads like these are why, when I need something moved... I pick up my cell, find his contact... and text him.

Within 15 miles or so? I just drive my tractor to where I'm going.

I don't mind writing checks to him one bit. Or a little extra wear on the tractor tires. It's still cheaper than all this CDL BS...actually not BS... the rules are there for a reason. If you can afford a rig that can haul 26001 pounds... or a 50 foot camper... or an excavator setup... you can afford to get licensed and road tested to show that you know what you're doing with all of that on the road.

I have a friend who has been an excavator/masonry contractor for years. Even HE doesn't mess with this stuff. Sure, he has a truck and a trailer. All far under 26K, to haul his mini excavator around... or maybe grab a culvert pipe for a job.

But when he needs to move his big excavator? He gets out his cell and calls someone that does that for a living. His skills are masonry and excavating and such... he doesn't need to add CDL rules navigation to his calling card.

 

[Welding man]

I have watched this discussion for several days now and the one thing that I see is that no one has really mentioned is the word Enforcement. I live on the state line. The county that I live in there is zero enforcement. I have not seen or even heard of a DOT cop in my county in years. The Deputy sheriffs couldn't care less what you haul or haul it on. We have 2 sometimes 3 state police in the county and they are so busy with druggies and assisting the deputies they don't care either. Nobody pays any attention to the law. They load it and go, BUT nobody crosses that state line. The other side of that line enforcement is rampant. They are after everyone. They got a friend of mine a while back in the lawn mowing business and wrote him 14 tickets and red tagged a brand new Pick-up truck and box trailer. No business name on trailer-no Dot number-underage driver got him red tagged (his son). A whole list of purely stupid stuff that the Cop just wanted to show the kid who was boss. Friend took it to court and beat most of the charges. We have a lot of scrap haulers in our area. Pick-up truck and a trailer, they never get stopped. Same trailer and a one ton dually. The Dot cops pull every one and read them the riot act. In my area it is just a money generator not at all about safety.

 

[Bob Bancroft]

Any truck and trailer combination over 26,000 pounds requires a class A license. Does not matter if for commerce or not. This includes pickups with large 5th wheel travel trailers. Weight is determined by the manufacturer sticker on truck and trailer. It does not go by the registered weight. Basically as long as under 26,000 pounds anyone with a class d license can pull that combination. As far as large motorhomes. If over 26,000 pounds a special R endorsement is required. To get that endorsement you need to take a road test in your motorhome, or one over 26,000 pounds. If pulling a trailer behind the motorhome that puts you back to needing a class A license. These according to the officers are the laws here in Nys. They also stated they do not rarely if ever bother with travel trailers, motorhomes, or people with any type of recreational trailer. They are mostly after people operating for commerce. Anyone out making money with their truck and trailer is commerce. They said people always try to bs them on it and fail. They said occasionally they pull over someone doing work for themselves at a property they own or for a friend/relative but that is almost never the case. They said when a truck has Not For Hire on it a red flag goes up. The officers said people put that on their vehicle thinking they won’t get pulled over or stopped but the officers said they pull them over all the time and find that they are using the vehicle and or trailer to make money. So basically stay under 26,000 pounds, don’t use it to make money, and remember what your registered for means diddly. There are all kinds of endorsements for farm vehicles and licensing. Biggest thing they said that stuck with me was - most people will never get pulled over by Dot with a travel trailer, motorhome, or recreational trailer. Where the problem lies if there ever was an accident with someone driving out of class the lawyers would be all over it with huge lawsuits. Just something to think about. They spewed out a lot more info and my head was swimming by the time they were done. I just thought I’d share a few things. Most probably covered by John and others in the previous thread.

Both my grain/dump (54000#) and pickup (7000#) trucks have agriculture registrations. That saves almost a third of the cost compared to the commercial registration. I can go anywhere, but only hauling my own stuff. Used to be all pickups were commercial. Now they can even have passenger registrations. I have a class B, only because I was grandfathered into it. I guess I could drive my dump truck with a regular operators license and a farm endorsement. As you state- all kinds of possibilities for farm vehicles. I am exempt from needing a DOT physical while driving my own ag truck in my own state.
A friend was recently ticketed for overweight on a posted road. Though he was empty, he was ticketed for his NY gross- 102,000#! Judge threw it out.

 

[matthies]

Anybody driving a RV should have to get a cdl or close to it as MANY don't know how to drive a larger vehicle, let alone back it up.

 

[showcrop]

An observation: The whole RV thing can be very strongly affected by the time and money available for maintenance. Truckers can get so pushed to get the next load and get it delivered that mainrenance is likely to slip despite the best intentions. RV owners typically have more money and lots of down time for getting maintenance done.

 

[will-max dairy]

Both my grain/dump (54000#) and pickup (7000#) trucks have agriculture registrations. That saves almost a third of the cost compared to the commercial registration. I can go anywhere, but only hauling my own stuff. Used to be all pickups were commercial. Now they can even have passenger registrations. I have a class B, only because I was grandfathered into it. I guess I could drive my dump truck with a regular operators license and a farm endorsement. As you state- all kinds of possibilities for farm vehicles. I am exempt from needing a DOT physical while driving my own ag truck in my own state.
A friend was recently ticketed for overweight on a posted road. Though he was empty, he was ticketed for his NY gross- 102,000#! Judge threw it out.

"Hauling my own stuff"...

When I read the farm plate rules for NY, I interpreted that to mean my own "produce" from the farm. Hay, Grain, possibly even Cattle...within the mileage and other restrictions.

Hauling scrap/garbage from our farm to the solid waste authority... I figured would be OK as well... as long as it's local.

As for equipment hauling... I interpret that as maybe allowing me to haul equipment to a field for baling, harvesting, excavating for field modifications (i.e. installing drain tile)... but as soon as I haul that equipment to do something commercial, like dig a house foundation... I'm definitely outside of the rules; whether I'm paid for it or not.

These are my interpretations, and I'm about as sure of them as the chance of a snowball on top of the woodstove.

Most of the gray area here comes when people (in my opinion) use their farm as an umbrella to do all sorts of other things that aren't farming, such as landscaping, excavating, property maintenance, etc. etc. These types of things should be done with all of the same licenses as the non-farmer people that you're competing against...in a fair world.

 

[john in la]

This all started years ago and you can blame the general public for the rules we have today.

There was a time when trucks ran hard because when the wheels stopped turning you stopped getting paid. Black Molly pills and 3 log books were common.
Couple that with when a truck has a major accident someone usually dies and it is often not the truck driver.

The general public went on a rampage that we need to slow down these trucks and enforce the log book rules.
Then the RV dealers and farm lobbyists stepped in and you got the exemptions to the rules we have today.

So every time you think DOT regulations are to harsh remember it was your mom and dad trying to protect you while you jumped around in the back seat of the car with no seatbelt fault.

 

[Bob Bancroft]

"Hauling my own stuff"...

When I read the farm plate rules for NY, I interpreted that to mean my own "produce" from the farm. Hay, Grain, possibly even Cattle...within the mileage and other restrictions.

Hauling scrap/garbage from our farm to the solid waste authority... I figured would be OK as well... as long as it's local.

As for equipment hauling... I interpret that as maybe allowing me to haul equipment to a field for baling, harvesting, excavating for field modifications (i.e. installing drain tile)... but as soon as I haul that equipment to do something commercial, like dig a house foundation... I'm definitely outside of the rules; whether I'm paid for it or not.

These are my interpretations, and I'm about as sure of them as the chance of a snowball on top of the woodstove.

Most of the gray area here comes when people (in my opinion) use their farm as an umbrella to do all sorts of other things that aren't farming, such as landscaping, excavating, property maintenance, etc. etc. These types of things should be done with all of the same licenses as the non-farmer people that you're competing against...in a fair world.

Right. Be aware that a "farm" plate, is different than an "agriculture" plate.

 

[Bob Bancroft]

An observation: The whole RV thing can be very strongly affected by the time and money available for maintenance. Truckers can get so pushed to get the next load and get it delivered that mainrenance is likely to slip despite the best intentions. RV owners typically have more money and lots of down time for getting maintenance done.

I just watched a you tube video entitled "bus grease monkey" where the guy worked on a Prevost bus. It looked beautiful, but shouldn't have been on the road. Wheel bearings, brakes, suspension, steering, were terrible.

 

[JOCCO]

Well long ago a local Dot cop we all knew. A bunch of us asked him about our farm trucks, he looked at them quickly and gave us some information papers. Said "I do not mess with them unless there is an accident or other complaint" Told us how busy he was and went on to say he would have to look up lot of the farm truck laws, as he did not know them! Took mine as an inspection specimen and logged it in to show he was working!

 

[will-max dairy]

Right. Be aware that a "farm" plate, is different than an "agriculture" plate.

Right. We had a 1988 GMC C70 for a while that was tagged on its mfg plate at just under 27K. When I registered it, I did the "Agriculture" plate thing. It was an expensive registration and took three months, due to C*O*V*I*D. It was "interesting" to learn how to work on its air brakes... but not interesting or useful enough to continue the experiment past a year. I ended up selling it; because I felt as though I couldn't do it justice and make it completely road-worthy enough to justify continued registration, insurance, etc.

 

[BarnyardEngineering]

This all started years ago and you can blame the general public for the rules we have today.

There was a time when trucks ran hard because when the wheels stopped turning you stopped getting paid. Black Molly pills and 3 log books were common.
Couple that with when a truck has a major accident someone usually dies and it is often not the truck driver.

The general public went on a rampage that we need to slow down these trucks and enforce the log book rules.
Then the RV dealers and farm lobbyists stepped in and you got the exemptions to the rules we have today.

So every time you think DOT regulations are to harsh remember it was your mom and dad trying to protect you while you jumped around in the back seat of the car with no seatbelt fault.

Not being killed by an exhausted driver hopped up on pep pills doing 90MPH down the highway running 10,000lbs overweight doesn't seem like all that unreasonable an ask...

"Why can't they leave me alone? I'm a good operator!" Too bad the DOT doesn't have a "good operator detector." They could just aim it at the truck as it passes by and only pull over the ones that need to be pulled over. Unfortunately, they don't, and all trucks tend to look pretty good at 60' and 60MPH.

 

[showcrop]

I just watched a you tube video entitled "bus grease monkey" where the guy worked on a Prevost bus. It looked beautiful, but shouldn't have been on the road. Wheel bearings, brakes, suspension, steering, were terrible.

Yes, there are always the anecdotal exceptions to everything.

 

[centralilbaler]

Well long ago a local Dot cop we all knew. A bunch of us asked him about our farm trucks, he looked at them quickly and gave us some information papers. Said "I do not mess with them unless there is an accident or other complaint" Told us how busy he was and went on to say he would have to look up lot of the farm truck laws, as he did not know them! Took mine as an inspection specimen and logged it in to show he was working!

same information given by one here. Main thing was he stated was "Farmers have so many exemptions, we dont have time them look it up"