[Just Susan]

The weigh stations are for commercial vehicles only. The only type of station you may have to stop at is an agricultural check point if Fl or anyother state you pass through has one. These checkpoints are to keep out diseased plant materials...by that they mean any and all.

Overview
Weigh stations are equipped with scales, some of which permit the trucks to continue moving while being weighed, while older scales require the trucks to stop. There are a variety of scales employed from single axle scales to multi-axle sets. Signal lights indicate if the driver should pull over for additional inspection or if they are allowed to return to the highway.

Some jurisdictions employ the use of portable scales, allowing weigh stations to be set up at any point. Portable scales allow states to set up temporary scales for situations such as seasonal check points, temporary checkpoints on isolated roads often used by trucks, and help prevent driver's from avoiding scales at fixed locations.


[edit] United States
A weigh station located near state border is called a port of entry. States may also locate weigh stations in the interior of the state. Interior weigh stations are often located at choke points or areas where freight originates or is delivered.

Weigh stations were primarily created to collect road use taxes before IFTA created a intntegrated system of doing so. While taxes can still be paid at weigh stations, their primary function is now enforcement of tax and safety regulations. These include: to check freight carrier compliance with fuel tax laws; to chedck weight restrictions; to check equipment safety; to check compliance with Hours of Service Regulations. Weigh stations are regulated by individual state governments and therefore have vastly different requirements from state to state. They are typically operated by the state's Department of Transportation (DOT) in conjunction with the state highway patrol or state police, thus enabling enforcement of applicable laws. The federal maximum weight is set at 80,000 pounds. Trucks exceeding the federal weight limit can still operate on the country's highways with an overweight permit, but such permits are only issued before the scheduled trip and expire at the end of the trip. Overweight permits are only issued for loads that cannot be broken down to smaller shipments that fall below the federal weight limit, and there is no other alternative to moving the cargo by truck. Permitted oversize trucks are often required to coordinate with the Departments of Transportation and law enforcement agencies of the transited states before the trip begins, as most states require oversize trucks to be escorted. Many states have weigh-in-motion technology that allow a continuous flow of truck weighing.

Many states also check freight paperwork, vehicle paperwork, and logbooks to ensure that fuel taxes have been paid and that truck drivers are obeying the Hours of Service (a federal requirement). Also the truck and driver may have to undergo a DOT inspection as most states perform the bulk of their DOT inspections at their weigh stations. In some cases, if a truck is found to be overweight, the vehicle is ordered to stop until the situation can be fixed by acquiring an overweight permit. In other cases, the driver may receive an overweight ticket and may or may not be required to offload the extra freight. Offloading the extra freight may not be practical for perishable or hazardous loads. The first state to implement a weight law was Maine, which set a limit of 18,000 pounds (8 tons; 8,200 kg) in 1918.

Truckers often refer to weigh stations as "chicken coops." [1] The song 'Convoy' by C W McCall refers to the aforementioned 'chicken coops' in the line: "Those chicken coops were full of bears and choppers filled the skies"


[edit] Electronic Weigh Station Bypass
Many states now use electronic bypass systems to alleviate some of the truck traffic through the weigh station. It is best known as PrePass, NorPass in Kentucky, or simply A.V.I. (Automatic Vehicle Identification). The system consists of the equipment at the weigh station itself, as well as a truck mounted transponder, usually placed on the inside of the windshield. These are similar to transponders used for toll collection. Each transponder is directly registered to a specific truck, and contains a unique identification. The registration process propagates information such as carrier name, unit number, and elected gross weight to weigh stations. In addition, the system keeps a basic safety and compliance record for each vehicle. As a truck approaches a weigh station (approximately one mile before), an electronic "reader" on a boom over the freeway reads the information from the truck transponder. At the same time, the truck is usually driving over high-speed electronic scales embedded in the road. The system computes the weight, by axle and gross, and determines if it is within the limits. It also looks at the safety and compliance record on the data base. The A display shows the results to the weigh master, including the speed of the vehicle. The weigh master may have the system automatically determine if a a truck needs to stop or may override the system. Approximately one-half to one full mile after passing under the "reader", the truck will pass under another boom which has an electronic unit to send the transponder a signal. If the weight and safety information are acceptable the truck may receive a green light and can continue without entering the weigh station at all. A driver may get a red light. On these occasions, the truck must pull into the weigh station for the normal weigh-in procedure. The most common reason a truck is "redlighted" is a weight problem, or a random check. Each time a truck is randomly pulled in, it is noted in the system whether the driver was compliant or not during the check. This affects how often a truck (or different trucks from the same company) are pulled in. For example, a company who is very compliant with the law, will probably only have 5% of its trucks "redlighted." On the other hand, a company whose trucks have compliance issues during the random checks will have their information updated accordingly, and might get "redlighted", for example, 30% of the time.[citation needed]