cuttin edge
Senior Member
Got called into work yesterday. Construction season won't really start for another month here, so I am still off. We picked up a little job bush cutting and cutting trees in an area that will be widened out and ditched this summer. I took a tandem truck with a tag along float and a 145 Linkbelt. I was moving trees they were falling on the road, and pulling others to the side of the road for them to junk up. One of the Flaggers lives close by, so they were junking the wood up for her for fire wood. I was loading it on the tandem and taking it to her place. One of the other guys was running a 235 Linkbelt with a mulching head, cleaning the brush. Job had to be don by the end of the day Friday, something to do with nesting birds, must have had reservations for Saturday, I don't know. I hauled the machine I had back to our shop, about a 45min drive. They asked me if I would take the big float and go grab the 235. The regular float man was moving something to the quarry, gen set trailers I think. I grabbed another truck, hooked onto his float and went. It was already 4:30. Went up, loaded the mulcher, and started back to town. When I was getting the D board off the back of the float, I noticed the tags on the float were expired, but figured no one would be around, and I still had to get home. Spring weight restrictions are in place, but I was still legal. The float man called me on my phone to ask if I could leave the machine on his float, and just unhook the truck. He had to move it on Monday, and he also said he ad the paperwork for the new tags for the float in his truck. I was driving an old International PayStar. Loud in the cab hard to hear the phone, so you know how when you are trying to hear, and sometimes you don't see as well. We have weigh stations with no scale, just a place for them to check trucks. I saw him, so I got off the phone. He flipped his lights when I was beside him, so I waved, thought he was just saying hello. I didn't see any lights telling me to report. First thing he was behind me. Pulled over, he comes up, and asks why I didn't stop, the lights were on. Distracted driving.... I really didn't see them, so I played dumb, and said I thought if you wanted me, you would have had your lights on as well. He screw his face up at me, so I said, I have a license, but don't drive truck a lot. I offered to back up, but he said that would be too dangerous on the highway. He asked for my over sized permit, so I asked what would it look like, and he explained. Took everything back to his van, came back with a written warning, and explained that the smaller inspection stations, you only pull in when they have their lights on, the bigger ones like this one, if the lights are on, you pull in. Which I knew but. He either didn't see the tags on the trailer expired, or ran them and saw that they had been renewed online. So either my phone stupor caused me not to see the lights, or they were not on. If he was going to ticket me, I would have asked to go back and see if they were on, but I was not going to argue with a warning.
