One of the growing industry issues that are soaring is overloading trucks. When you improperly load your trucks, this can lead to accidents which can not only cause injuries but also take away your life. Data reveals that overloaded trucks and improperly loading your trucks are two of the main reasons behind the increased truck accidents. Not taking care of the truck’s engine and brakes is yet another leading cause of truck accidents.
Truck drivers are too casual these days about driving trucks and they tend to forget that driving trucks is one of the toughest tasks that they may have to do. Overloading trucks can be prevented by truck scales as they can provide you with the best permissible weight which is allowed on roads.
Risks of overloading
When you drive an overloaded truck, this will lead a breach of several federal and state regulations. If a truck or any other vehicle is not properly loading, the braking distance will increase and this will make the driver misjudge the stopping distance. Moreover, the rates of tire failure are also higher when you increase the load as the tires get hotter and their center of gravity increases. Even though a car doesn’t surpass the payload limits, the truck will still be at the risk of losing its balance and turn over.
Boosts operating expenses
Due to the fact that overloading diminishes the service of the truck, it leads to increased operating costs. Data reveals that overloading is the number #1 cause of improper maintenance of fleet trucks. The truck manufacturer will set the GVWR to where the truck can stop, perform or carry load on a level that’s acceptable. Whenever distribution of weight and payload isn’t considered, this can lead to a resulting equipment failure and also injuries on a personal level.
Overloading of axle
Irrespective of the weight of the vehicle being within OEM limits, the vehicle can still be overloaded in case a part of the maximum payload of the truck can be put on one axle. Distribution is important just as overloading the truck according to its weight. In a situation where the rear axle is carrying more than 90% of the total weight load, the front axle shouldn’t have enough weight and the driving surface will cause premature wear and tear on the tires and suspension components and tires.
Stay proactive
It is only by being hands-on that you can determine whether or not the vehicles are overloaded. Enter the field and assess the usage. There are instances where the drivers ask for a wrong vehicle for fleet application and the fleet manager ends up thinking that all things are running fine. You should therefore check for the rear-end, brake wear before time and suspension and steering which are unresponsive.
So, as we see, overloading is an issue for increased operating costs, for safety costs and also a matter of risk management. Hence you need to be proactive and ensure that you take the precautionary steps to avoid an accident due to overloading.
