We buy trucks in Gulfport

The port is not one entry in the record, it is four. A principal port, a marine ro/ro terminal at the Deep Water Port West Pier Terminal, a rail intermodal ramp on the same coordinate as the ro/ro berth, and two rail yards a few miles inland. The principal port coordinate lies 0.12 miles from the centroid — among the three closest node-to-centroid distances recorded anywhere in this state, and the closest on this coast.

Those four are not four sites. The ro/ro terminal and the intermodal ramp share a coordinate exactly, because they are the same quay described by two different layers of the source data. What differs is the traffic each layer assumes: ro/ro units are driven or hauled off the terminal on a day-cab out-and-back, while a container ramp is credited with a 150 mi drayage draw before an over-the-road move competes.

For a truck owner the useful half of that is the second figure, and it is an assumption in the record rather than a measurement. It puts the tractors working this quay as drawn from up to 150 mi out rather than from the city, which is one reason a truck registered here often turns out to have spent its life somewhere else entirely.

Beyond the quay, two of the seven rows attached here are military: the Gulfport-Biloxi Regional Airport Air National Guard site 0.76 miles from the centroid, and the NG Gulfport AVCRAD 0.47 miles from it.

Those two are part of something larger. Six of the sixteen military rows in this research batch fall in Harrison County — the AVCRAD and the airport guard site here, Keesler AFB and the Keesler Training Annex to the east, the Naval Construction Battalion Center at Gulfport, and Woolmarket — spread across four different city labels. It is the densest military concentration in the whole slice outside San Diego and Norfolk.

Both military rows carry a 50 mi radius in the record, on the reasoning that base support and contractor traffic is local. So the trucks that work them are owned within about an hour of here, and when one comes up for sale it usually comes up close to home.

Those yards are worked by trucks running under a weight schedule with no local wrinkle in it at all, and that is worth saying plainly because it is rare.

Miss. Code § 63-5-33 sets the maximum gross without a special permit at 80,000 lb, and § 63-5-27 sets single axles at 20,000 lb and tandem axles at 34,000 lb. Those are the federal figures exactly. Across the state research on file, Mississippi was the first state in fifteen batches of it whose weight rules produced no distinctive quirk — no calendar tolerance, no axle ladder, no pro-rata permit, no tyre-width limit, no grandfathered figure. The finding is the absence.

There is a single allowance, and it is bound to the commodity rather than general. § 63-5-33 lifts the ceiling for vehicles hauling sand, gravel, woodchips, wood shavings, sawdust, fill dirt, agricultural products, products for recycling and materials for highway construction or repair, and only from the point of loading to the point of unloading for processing. General freight moving to or from a yard is outside it, so for most of the traffic here the plain figures are the figures.

Where the allowance does reach, it stops at three separate doors. Neither the increased weights nor any tolerance is allowed on federal interstate highways, nor on other highways where a tolerance is specifically prohibited by the Transportation Commission, the county board of supervisors or the municipal governing authorities under § 63-5-27. 23 U.S.C. § 127 caps the interstate above it, and whether any particular road carries a prohibition can be decided at county or municipal level.

Miss. Code § 63-5-33 on gross weight and the commodity tolerance, § 63-5-27 on axle weights and local prohibitions, and 23 U.S.C. § 127 on the interstate, as recorded in the node research for this state. Information, not legal advice. Mississippi bridge postings and seasonal restrictions were not determined and none is stated here.

Beyond the weight rules, the paperwork turns on one distinction that is worth knowing before anybody starts work on a truck.

Mississippi treats a vehicle as a total loss when repair costs equal or exceed 75% of actual cash value. But the statute’s own definition is procedural rather than arithmetical: a salvage vehicle is a vehicle upon which a salvage title has been issued, and salvage titles are issued to insurance companies so that they can dispose of vehicles on which they have paid a total loss claim. The brand follows the insurer’s payment. The percentage describes when that payment usually happens; it is not itself the test.

Four states on file brand at 75%, and each measures it against a different base — retail value in one, pre-damage fair retail from a named class of source in another, fair market value in a third, and actual cash value here. Grouping states by the percentage alone would give a wrong answer in all four.

There are carve-outs, and they are worth reading before assuming a brand. A vehicle is not a salvage vehicle here if it is ten years old or older and worth 1,500 dollars or less, or if the damage requires replacement or repair of five or fewer minor component parts. Whether a particular older truck falls under that value figure is a valuation question and is not answered here.

A repaired salvage vehicle has to pass a state inspection at a designated station before a rebuilt title issues, administered by the Department of Public Safety’s Salvage Inspection Division. Mississippi runs that as a dedicated division of its own; most states on file give the job to the state police or to a licensed mechanic.

None of which stops a sale. A lost title has a counter replacement, a rebuilt title is fine by us, and a salvage brand is a fact about the paperwork rather than a bar to buying the truck.

Miss. Code tit. 63 and the Department of Revenue’s salvage vehicle guidance, as recorded in the node research for this state. Information, not legal advice. The storage and mechanic’s lien clock, lien release, plate return, IRP and the emissions element of the rebuilt inspection were not determined and none is stated. Mississippi has not adopted the Advanced Clean Trucks rule, which in any case is a manufacturer sales standard and asks nothing of an owner or an operator.

None of which narrows what we will look at. Day cabs and road tractors, car haulers and rollbacks, dump trucks, flatbeds, box trucks, straight trucks, tankers, service bodies, and the work trucks and pickups that go with a crew.

Two of those types are here for a reason rather than for the list. A ro/ro berth moves vehicles on their own wheels or on a trailer, so car haulers and rollbacks work this quay in a way they do not work an inland yard. The rest is ordinary coast freight.

Whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change. We buy all of them. Most of it turns up within a few miles of the West Pier Terminal or out along the 50 mi ring the two guard sites draw on.

• 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.
• 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. A rebuilt one is fine, and Mississippi will have put it through a Salvage Inspection Division station before it issued.
• Do you actually come out here?Yes. We come to you and drive it away, we come to you and tow it, we buy it remotely and arrange the tow, or you drive it to us — whichever is easiest for you.
• How far out do you come?Anywhere in Mississippi and anywhere in the country. The port coordinate is 0.12 miles from the middle of town and the AVCRAD 0.47, so most of this is a short drive for us: we drive it away, tow it, buy it remotely and arrange the tow, or you drive it in.

Those reasons are the same everywhere and they are mostly personal. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A contract that ended and took the work with 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.

On this stretch of Harrison County a lot of it is contract work ending rather than a driver stopping — base support inside the 50 mi ring, or drayage off the West Pier Terminal that went somewhere else.