We buy trucks in Rapid City

The heavy work here starts closer in than it usually does. A cement plant sits about 2.6 miles west with 108 people on it, and a Simon Contractors quarry about 3.4 miles west with 14. Two rail yards are about 0.6 and 1.9 miles out, and a Guard camp about 2.5 miles west. That is a lot of tonnage inside four miles.

Past that it thins fast. A small pit about 6.2 miles north with 2 people, another about 7 miles east with 5, a third about 12 miles north-east with 3, and a Pete Lien pit about 18 miles west with 5. The air force base is about 8.3 miles north-east in Meade County, and a second Guard camp about 4.4 miles west.

Those local pits are all under fifteen people. The largest workforce anywhere in reach is a mine at Lead, about 37 miles north-west in Lawrence County, with 270 people — two and a half times the cement plant and more than every local pit put together. A pit about 40 miles north has 2.

So this is a place with one dense middle, one very large employer a long way out, and hill roads between them. On a truck sitting out that way we usually buy it remotely and arrange the tow, because that is the realistic path rather than the polite one; coming out and driving it away, coming out and towing it, or you bringing it in are all still real.

Those hill runs meet a weight rule that inverts an arrangement our state files record over and over. In Wyoming, North Dakota and Washington the interstate is the road where relief disappears — the state number applies off it and the federal number applies on it. Here the state sells a permit that lifts the interstate cap itself: the maximum gross vehicle weight on the interstate is 80,000 lb unless an annual over-80,000-pounds-on-interstate permit has been issued.

That is a permit product on top of the federal framework rather than a state allowance that stops at the line. Of the states on our files that record the inversion, South Carolina is the only other one that sells relief on the interstate itself. The federal position it rests on was not established in our research — 23 U.S.C. § 127 carries state-specific grandfather exceptions and a permit of this kind necessarily sits on one — so the mechanism is stated and the underlying exception is not.

SDDOT Motor Carrier Handbook, annual over-80,000-pounds-on-interstate permit; 23 U.S.C. § 127. The specific federal exception was NOT established. Information, not legal advice.

The other road rule here is unusual for the opposite reason: it is written down. Under the authority of SDCL § 32-22-24, highway maintaining authorities may restrict loads any time from 15 February to 30 April, to protect their highways from break-up during the spring thaw.

Wisconsin publishes average dates but declares its window administratively, Ohio’s is a percentage cut on notice, and Wyoming’s is a directorial power with no published window at all. This one fixes the outer bounds in law, which means a hauler can plan around it rather than watch for a notice. If your truck has spent its springs on restricted hill roads out toward Lead, that is why.

SDCL § 32-22-24. Information, not legal advice, and only as current as the date the rule file was last verified.

The plant and the hills run different iron, and whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change — we buy all of them. Mixers and aggregate haulers off the cement plant and the Simon Contractors quarry. Dump trucks on the pit runs north and east. Day cabs and road tractors on the long legs into the hills, flatbeds, box trucks, service bodies and the pickups that follow the rest of it around.

Most of it works inside about 4 miles — two yards, the cement plant, the quarry — and then reaches 18 miles west and 37 miles north-west into Lawrence County.

• Does it have to run?No. It does have to be complete, though — if the engine, transmission, doors, rear ends, drive shafts, wheels or anything under the hood have been removed, we can’t buy it. A missing bumper is fine. A missing driveline is not.
• Do you actually come out into the hills?Where it is close, yes. Where it is not — the Lead end of it is about 37 miles north-west in Lawrence County — we usually buy it remotely and arrange the tow instead, and that is the realistic answer rather than a brush-off. Coming out to drive it away, coming out to tow it, or you bringing it in are all still options.
• What if I can’t find the title?We need a title — unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. If it’s lost, there’s a counter replacement. If there was never one to lose, there’s a bonded route. Neither stops a sale.
• There’s still money owed on it. Now what?That’s a payoff and a lien release, and it’s the slow part rather than the hard part. Tell us up front and we’ll work it into the paperwork.
• How do you pay?Cash or electronic payment, whichever you would rather have.
• The road was restricted all spring. Does that matter to you?No. It tells us something about the work the truck has been doing rather than about whether we want it. The restriction window here runs any time from 15 February to 30 April and it is set in statute, so it is a normal part of the year rather than an event.

Beyond the trucks themselves, the reasons repeat. A DOT physical didn’t go the way it used to. A cement or aggregate contract that filled the season for nine years went to somebody else. The truck is just sitting beside a shed, and every month it sits is another month of insurance on something that isn’t turning a wheel.

The lots around the cement plant and the Simon Contractors quarry, 2 to 3 miles west, hold a fair number of trucks in exactly that position — and so do the yards up toward Lawrence County.

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.