Collier County
Collier County posts two bridges, and one is this quarry’s front door
Golden Gate Quarry employs nine people. Within ten miles of it the National Bridge Inventory records 96 structures; two are posted for load and one is coded below legal loads.
That one is record 034106, carrying 20th Place SW, county-maintained, 5.89 miles out. Collier County maintains 120 bridges and posts two of them in total — so one of the county’s two posted crossings is the thing standing between this pit and its market.
It is worth saying at that resolution. A statewide figure, and even a county one, averages away the single object that decides the route.
So the ceiling here is generous, and it is still a ceiling
So the question becomes what that crossing admits. It is rated at 28.6 metric tonnes, and 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 17.6 tonnes of stone goes over.
That is a good deal more generous than the equivalent crossing up the coast at Fort Myers, which is rated at 20.1 tonnes and admits about nine. Same trade, same kind of truck, and the difference is one bridge rather than anything about the state.
Which is the whole argument for reading the crossing instead of the county. Golden Gate Quarry meets one restricted structure in 96 and the nearest is 5.89 miles out; a county figure would have told you neither number.
Florida weight law
That is still not the lowest number the truck meets
That is still not the lowest number a Naples dump truck meets, because Florida caps the vehicle as well as the crossing.
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 — 31.75 tonnes, where a combination grosses 36.3. On this route the bridge is not the binding number. The truck is.
Fla. Stat. § 316.535(6). Information, not legal advice.
Florida paperwork
The plate stays with you, and the title is one sentence
Both of those numbers stop mattering the day the truck changes hands, and two Florida details are worth knowing before it does.
The first is the plate. Florida requires the registration and the licence plate to remain in the name of the owner, so the plate comes off the truck rather than going with it — transferred to another vehicle of the same classification, or surrendered to the county tax collector.
The second is the title, and it is one sentence: we need one unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. A lost one has a counter replacement; where none exists there is a bonded route.
Fla. Stat. § 320.0609(1)(a). Information, not legal advice.
What we buy here
All of that iron is iron we buy. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers off the Golden Gate end of the trade. Day cabs and road tractors. Box trucks and straight trucks, flatbeds, tankers, service bodies, rollbacks, and the work trucks and pickups that go with a crew in Collier County.
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 in Naples
- 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.
- Do you buy off a construction site?Yes, and a live site is where a lot of these trucks are in Collier County — a pit floor at Golden Gate Quarry included. Getting it out from behind whatever is parked in front of it is our end of the job.
- 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 build that finished and left one truck standing on a Collier County yard with nothing booked for it, 5.89 miles the wrong side of the only posted crossing that mattered to it.
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.