We buy trucks in Lakewood Park

St Lucie County posts nine of the 26 bridges it maintains — 34.6%, the highest county rate we have measured anywhere in Florida. Jackson County in the panhandle is next at 23.4%. Pasco County posts 1.8% and Lee 2.4%.

That is a factor of nineteen between the ends of one state whose overall rate, 4.4% of structures coded below legal loads, is among the mildest we have measured. A state figure conceals a county figure, and a county figure conceals a node.

At the pit itself — 22 people, 105 structures within ten miles — four are coded below legal loads, 3.8%, and all four are county-maintained. The binding one carries Taylor Dairy Road, 6.25 miles from the gate.

So the pattern behind that is worth naming, because it tells a driver who to ask.

Of the twenty-three restricted structures near the twenty nodes measured alongside this one, nineteen were county-maintained. Florida’s counties hold 31.0% of the state’s structures against FDOT’s 45.1%, so the restrictions are concentrated well above the counties’ share of the stock.

Which is why we publish the county-maintained count on every one of these pages. The county is the tier a seller or a driver can actually telephone about a posting, and in St Lucie County there is more to telephone about than anywhere else in the state.

Which is the part that would be lost if the page stopped at the percentage. The Taylor Dairy Road structure is rated 28.0 metric tonnes.

NBI ratings record the gross weight of the vehicle rather than the load, so after the roughly 11-tonne tare of an empty tandem dump about 17.0 tonnes of stone goes over — a good deal more than most of the crossings in this lane admit. A truck goes over part loaded rather than not at all.

So the most heavily posted county in Florida happens to bind this particular pit fairly gently, at 6.25 miles out. Both things are true and only the second one is about the route.

Those four crossings sit under a limit written into 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.

Those numbers stop mattering the day the truck changes hands, and the paperwork is what is left.

A lost title has a counter replacement. Where none exists there is a bonded route. Neither is unusual and neither stops a sale.

The plate is the Florida detail people miss: it stays in the owner’s name and comes off the truck, to be moved to another vehicle of the same class or surrendered to the county tax collector.

Fla. Stat. § 320.0609(1)(a). Information, not legal advice.

All of it is iron we buy across St Lucie County. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers off the pit, held to 70,000 lb where a combination gets 80,000 lb and part loaded over Taylor Dairy Road. Day cabs and road tractors, flatbeds, box trucks, tankers, rollbacks, service bodies and the pickups that go with a twenty-two-person crew.

Whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change. We buy all of them.

• 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.
• A third of the county’s bridges are posted. Does that put you off?No. St Lucie County posts 34.6% of what it maintains and the pit meets four restrictions in 105 structures — those are different measurements, and the one at 6.25 miles still takes 17 tonnes of stone.
• 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.

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 St Lucie County with nothing booked for it, 6.25 miles from the Taylor Dairy Road crossing it used every day.

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.