Lee County
An 85-person quarry filed to a university
The place name here is a university and the registration filed to it is a quarry with 85 people. It sits 3.37 miles from the centre of the census place it names — close enough that the filing is sound, and far enough that the name tells you very little about the work.
It has a twin. Another registration sits 1.17 miles away in Lee County, and the two of them read exactly one restricted crossing between them — the same one, record 124127, carrying Constitution Circle, 7.47 miles from this pit and 7.10 from the other.
Two registrations, one bridge, one answer. We name the structure so that two nodes reporting one cap can be seen to be reporting one bridge rather than two.
So the constraint here is shared, and it is worth a number
So the useful figure is what that single crossing admits rather than how many pits are near it.
Constitution Circle is rated 20.1 metric tonnes, county-maintained. NBI ratings are the gross weight of the vehicle rather than the load, so after the roughly 11-tonne tare of an empty tandem dump about 9.1 tonnes of stone goes over. That is the middle band: a truck crosses part loaded or goes round.
Lee County posts three of the 125 bridges it maintains, so the odds of meeting a second are low. The odds are not the point when the one you meet is 7.47 miles from the gate and on the way to the market.
Which is a smaller number of decisive objects than it sounds
Which is the general lesson from this corner of Lee County, and it holds across the state.
A statewide figure counts thousands of structures. A county figure counts 125. What actually decides what leaves these two pits is one bridge on Constitution Circle, and the same pattern turns up wherever we look closely enough — a handful of crossings doing all the work that a percentage implies is spread out.
So the practical advice for anyone routing out of here is to know that crossing rather than the county rate, and the practical consequence for a seller is that the truck has been making more trips for the same tonnage than a bare mileage figure suggests.
Florida weight law
And the ceiling written into the truck itself
That crossing sits under a limit that travels with the vehicle rather than the road.
A single-unit vehicle used as a dump truck, a concrete mixer, a waste collection vehicle or a fuel tanker may not exceed 70,000 lb gross, against 80,000 lb for a combination including all enforcement tolerances. The divisible-load permit that adds ten per cent off the interstate system does not reach those vehicles at all.
Fla. Stat. § 316.535(6), with § 316.550(4). Information, not legal advice.
Florida paperwork
The title question, in one sentence and its fixes
Both of those stop mattering the day the truck changes hands. We need a title unless the truck is old enough that it never had one.
Everything past that is a fix rather than a category. A lost title has a counter replacement; where none exists there is a bonded route. The plate stays in your name and comes off the truck.
Where an insurer has paid a total loss, an electronic lien recorded on the title is the thing that actually holds it up.
Fla. Stat. § 320.0609(1)(a) and § 319.30. Information, not legal advice.
What we buy here
All of it is iron we buy across Lee County, from a campus address to a pit gate. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers off the quarry, held to 70,000 lb where a combination gets 80,000 lb. Day cabs and road tractors for the run into Fort Myers, flatbeds, box trucks, tankers, rollbacks, service bodies and the pickups that go with a crew.
Whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change. We buy all of them.
We buy complete trucks. If the engine, transmission, doors, rear ends, drive shafts, wheels or anything under the hood have been removed, we can’t buy it. Small things — a missing bumper — are fine.
Straight answers
The questions we get asked around Florida Gulf Coast University
- Does it have to run?No. It does have to be complete — if the engine, transmission, doors, rear ends, drive shafts, wheels or anything under the hood have been removed, we can’t buy it. Rust is not a disqualifier.
- The engine is out of it. Is that different?Yes, and that is the line. A tired engine is fine; an engine that has been pulled out and sold means we can’t buy the truck.
- It has crossed Constitution Circle part loaded for years. Does that show?Not as damage. In Lee County it shows as more trips for the same tonnage, which is hours rather than miles, and 7.47 miles from the gate means it happened every working day.
- What about the title?We need one unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. A lost title has a counter replacement; where none exists there’s a bonded route.
- How do you pay?Cash or electronic payment, whichever suits you.
Why people call
Beyond a truck that has simply done its turns, the reasons are personal ones. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A pit contract that ended and left one dump truck standing in Lee County with nothing booked for it, 7.47 miles from the Constitution Circle crossing that set every load it carried.
Most of those aren’t happy reasons, and we don’t treat them like they are. Somebody wants a straight answer and the truck gone by the end of the week. That’s what we’re here for.