We buy trucks in Reading

Very few cities in this state have this many trades in reach at once. The Leesport Quarry works broken limestone with thirteen people about 6 miles north-northwest, and Dyer Quarry Inc works traprock with twenty-eight about 7 miles away — two different rocks, two different customers.

Past them the list keeps going. The Mount Penn Preparation Plant handles anthracite about 7 miles south, the Evansville Plant burns cement with a hundred and seventy-three people about 8 miles north, and F.M. Brown’s Sons, Inc. mills flour about 8 miles northeast.

That spread is why the trucks here are so varied. A haulier in a single-industry town runs one kind of equipment; a haulier with limestone, traprock, cement, coal and flour all inside nine miles runs whatever the week demands.

So the used market from this city is the broadest in the lane, and the trucks tend to be generalists. Between the Leesport Quarry about 6 miles out and the Evansville Plant about 8 miles north, a single yard may hold a tipper, a mixer and a van.

Those roads run under a single statutory ceiling. Under 75 Pa.C.S. § 4941 the maximum gross weight for a vehicle or combination on a Pennsylvania highway is 80,000 lb. The only allowance found in the section is 2,000 lb for vehicles fuelled primarily by compressed or liquefied natural gas or powered primarily by electric battery.

No commodity relief for stone, sand or natural resources was found in that section as consulted. That is not the same as establishing there is none — Pennsylvania runs a large permit apparatus under Title 67 — and it is written here as an open question rather than as an answer.

The penalty is a formula rather than a flat fine. A driver over the maximum or registered gross weight commits a summary offence and on conviction pays $75, plus $75 for each 500 lb or part of it beyond 3,000 lb over the limit. So the first 3,000 lb over is effectively a flat charge and everything past that climbs in steps.

75 Pa.C.S. § 4941; 67 Pa. Code ch. 189. Information, not legal advice, and only as current as the date the rule file was last verified.

It is that convergence rather than any one distance that loads the network. Five industries in five directions all route through the same valley, and in Pennsylvania the binding weight on those lanes is frequently a posted figure rather than the general one.

The exemption turns on purpose rather than distance. Status is proved by a bill of lading showing a destination on the posted road, so a load bound for the Mount Penn Preparation Plant about 7 miles south is treated differently from one merely running through toward Dyer Quarry Inc.

Beyond the weight rules, that is the whole of it in one sentence. Everything after it is a fix rather than a category. If the title is lost, there is a counter replacement. If the truck never had one, there is a bonded route. Both are ordinary and neither stops a sale.

Two Pennsylvania rules are worth knowing because they run the opposite way to most states. There is no fixed total-loss percentage in statute: under 75 Pa.C.S. § 1232 the test is whether repair cost plus salvage value equals or exceeds actual cash value. And PennDOT defines a salvage vehicle by comparing the cost of repairs to the value of the repaired vehicle — every other state on file compares it to the value before the damage.

The other one protects old equipment. The salvage definition does not include a vehicle that would qualify as antique or classic but for its lack of restoration or maintenance. So a truck old enough to be antique cannot be called salvage merely because nobody restored it.

75 Pa.C.S. § 1232; PennDOT salvage and reconstructed-vehicle definitions. Information, not legal advice.

All of that mixed fleet comes to us. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers off the two quarries. Mixers and tankers off the cement work. Box trucks and straight trucks off the milling side, plus day cabs and road tractors, flatbeds, rollbacks, service bodies and the pickups and work trucks around them.

Most of it works between the Leesport Quarry, Dyer Quarry Inc and the Evansville Plant.

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.
• We run three different kinds of truck.That is normal out of this city and all three are a single straightforward conversation.
• What about the title?We need one unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. Lost has a counter replacement; a bonded route covers the rest.
• Can you collect from a quarry or a plant?Yes. Around the Leesport Quarry and the Evansville Plant it is routine — give us the gate and a contact.
• How far out do you come?All of this county and into Lancaster County, Lehigh County, Schuylkill County and Chester County.

Beyond a contract ending, the reasons are the ordinary ones. A retirement. A hauler down to one truck after a quiet year. A machine idle behind a yard for two winters.

Lots near Dyer Quarry Inc and out toward the Mount Penn Preparation Plant hold their share.