Question about highway weigh stations

Factual Questions
1

Anyone know why these things (they’re all over the place, trucks are supposed to pull in and be weighed) are closed about 95% of the time? Are the employees always on vacation or something? :slight_smile:

Seriously, I’ve driven all over the United States, and can’t remember the last time I saw one of these open. I’m sure that not having them open helps with traffic flow, but aren’t they supposed to serve some sort of purpose? Some states have a sign vaguely warning of “mobile patrols” when the stations are closed, but I haven’t seen any of those, either, and unless a truck was obviously overweight, I can’t imagine what they’d pull someone over for anyway.

I know that the stations aren’t out of date, because I saw a new one under construction today (on I-94 in Michigan near the Indiana border.) Of course, the one on the other side of the highway (construction long completed) had a “Closed” sign on it.

Thanks!

2

they’re opened at random, that way the truckers won’t know which are open at any given time and cannot warn others too far ahead. having a few rotating open stations is far more effective and cheaper than having them all constantly operating, where the deviant truckers can plan ahead and avoid the scales by taking an alternate route.
i think i got this from the imponderables books by david feldman.

peace,
~mixie

3

Here’s my thread of 7 months ago asking basically the same thing.

As I was reminded, do a search first before posting a new thread.