I see people pulling trailers around here with the rear end smashed down, obviously overloaded, tooling down the highway at 70MPH like it's no big thing. Makes ya wonder about people,... Couple years back someone was doin it on I-5 and they got a case of the tail wagging the dog and wiped out the entire 3 lanes of traffic and killed someone in another car.
I dont worry so much about the big trucks with all the stuff you have to learn to get your CDL these days, and the state patrol wandering around with thier mobile scales, those guys tend to try alot harder to do it right than Joe Blow in his quad-cab super extended frame 4x4 dualy pulling the largest mobile home on earth,... Wonder what would happen if they started making people roll through weigh stations in those rigs?
Back on topic tho, I can see where using the max front axle capacity would have been an advantage way back when, still looks odd on paper to me. But then I really suck at algebra!
However, were I to use that same logic in loading the bed of my newer truck, it seems not to be a good method, not on that truck anyway. The axle is nearly centered in the bed, given that, if I add an evenly distrubuted load in the bed, I'm pretty sure I can grossly overload the rear axle before registering an additional half ton on the front. Sure would be nice if they called a truck by it's actual capcity, but it's pretty plain to me that they dont. Hence why I'll just load it till the gap between my fender and tire is the same on front and rear, or the truck looks level to the ground from the side. May not be max capacity, but it makes for safer handling.
