Three registrations, seventeen people, and none of them in town
Three pits are filed under Punta Gorda and all three are small operations: the Highlands County Shell Pit with 3 employees, Jayrock with 9 and SRM Materials Punta Gorda with 5.
Two of them are effectively one site — Jayrock and SRM sit about eight tenths of a mile apart. And all three sit roughly nineteen miles inland from Punta Gorda itself, because the city on an MSHA registration is an office address rather than a location. We give the distance rather than write “the quarry at Punta Gorda” and be wrong by nineteen miles.
Small crews mean small fleets, and a small fleet means a truck that has done all of the work rather than a share of it.
So the map here says clear and the roadside may not
So the road network is the interesting part, and it is interesting for a reason that is easy to misread.
Within ten miles of each of the three, the National Bridge Inventory codes not one structure below legal loads — 8 structures near the shell pit, 54 near Jayrock, 50 near SRM. On that measure there is no commercial weight floor to report at all.
But each of the three has one structure posted for load. Across Florida the state posts 819 structures and codes 579 below legal loads, so the two fields disagree in exactly this direction here, and a driver meets a sign at a crossing the data holds no cap for. Charlotte County posts four of the 143 bridges it maintains and Collier two of 120, so the county tier is not idle — it simply is not everywhere.
Three Florida pits in five carry no commercial floor at all, one of the mildest road environments we have measured anywhere. That is a fact about the data as much as about the roads, and it is worth saying both ways round.
Florida weight law
The number that does bind is on the truck
Those crossings are not what limits a loaded shell or limerock truck out here. Its own configuration is.
Florida caps a single-unit vehicle used as a dump truck, a concrete mixer, a waste collection vehicle or a fuel tanker at 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 either.
Fla. Stat. § 316.535(6), with § 316.550(4). Information, not legal advice.
Florida paperwork
We need a title — unless the truck never had one
Both of 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 transferred to another vehicle of the same class or surrendered to the county tax collector.
Fla. Stat. § 320.0609(1)(a). Information, not legal advice.
What we buy here
All of that iron is iron we buy, 19 miles inland or in town. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers off the shell and limerock work at Jayrock and the Highlands County Shell Pit. Flatbeds and day cabs. Box trucks and straight trucks, tankers, service bodies, rollbacks, and the work trucks and pickups that go with a small 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 in Punta Gorda
- 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 is a three-truck outfit and the truck has done everything. Does that hurt it?No. A small fleet means one truck carried the whole job, which is what a three-employee registration like the Highlands County Shell Pit looks like from outside — and Charlotte County is full of outfits that size. That shows up in hours rather than miles, so tell us the hours.
- 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 small outfit winding down and the last truck still parked 19 miles inland at the yard, on a network where the National Bridge Inventory codes nothing below legal loads at all.
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.