We buy trucks in Marianna

Jackson County posts eighteen of the 77 bridges it maintains. Lee County, on the south-west coast, posts three of 125. That is a factor of ten inside one state whose overall rate is among the mildest we have measured anywhere — and it is why a statewide number is close to useless for planning a load.

At the pits themselves, four of the 59 structures within ten miles are coded below legal loads, and all four are county-maintained. The nearest is 2.49 miles from Rocky Creek Mine and Mill and 3.29 miles from 1874 Marianna.

A state rate conceals a county rate and a county rate conceals a node. Here all three are different numbers and only the last one is about your route.

So this is the place to be careful about which figure gets repeated, because in Jackson County the obvious one is misleading.

The lowest operating rating among those four crossings is 5.3 metric tonnes. Quote that and you would be telling a driver no commercial vehicle crosses at all — and that is false. The binding structure is 534162, carrying Iron Bridge Road, and the lowest rating at or above the commercial floor is 21.8 metric tonnes, about 24 US tons, which admits roughly 10.8 tonnes of stone over an empty tandem’s tare.

Four times the raw minimum. The raw minimum and the commercial floor are two different numbers and only the second one is about a truck. A page quoting the first would say a truck cannot cross a road that trucks cross part loaded every day.

Which is worth one more line, because it looks like a coincidence and is not. 1874 Marianna and Rocky Creek Mine and Mill sit about eight miles apart and return identical figures: four restricted structures in 59, all four county-maintained, a commercial floor of 21.8 metric tonnes.

Every published number but the distance matches, because two ten-mile circles drawn eight miles apart are very nearly the same circle. It is the eleventh pair of registrations we have found sharing a network and the first where the figures agree this closely.

The third row here is USA Calcium, with 4 people. Its commodity string reads industrial sand on a calcium operator in Florida’s limestone panhandle, which does not fit — the reverse of the granite row at Dames Point. We did not establish what it is, so we are not going to describe it.

Those four crossings sit 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.

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.

All of that iron is iron we buy. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers off 1874 Marianna and Rocky Creek Mine, held to 70,000 lb where a combination gets 80,000 lb. Day cabs and road tractors, flatbeds, box trucks, tankers, rollbacks, service bodies, and the work trucks and pickups that go with a crew in Jackson County.

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.
• It has run part loaded over posted bridges for years. Does that show?Not as damage. In Jackson County it shows as more trips for the same tonnage, which is hours rather than miles, and a truck off Rocky Creek Mine will have plenty of them.
• 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 truck standing in Jackson County with nothing booked for it, 2.49 miles from the crossing that set every load it ever 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.