We buy trucks in Smyer

The crushing operation here carries five people on the federal mine roll, and the operator of record is not a company at all. It is Lubbock County — a unit of local government — working a pit over the line in Hockley County.

That is a different ownership model from anything else on these pages. The pits in this lane are run by merchants, by ready-mix businesses, by energy companies, by contractors and by industrial-mineral firms; this one is run by a county road department for its own roads.

The state register is no help in locating it. No active aggregate production registration lies within a mile of the coordinate, and the nearest is 19.0 miles away — by a wide margin the largest such gap in this lane, where the next worst is eight miles and most are under three.

That public ownership changes both ends of a truck’s life, and it changes them in the seller’s favour. Equipment bought by a county is bought on bid, maintained to a schedule, and has its records kept because keeping them is a requirement rather than a good intention.

So a machine that has spent its life on Lubbock County books, working the Hockley County pit, usually arrives with a history that a private owner would struggle to produce. That is genuinely useful to us, and it is worth mentioning first if it applies to your truck.

The other end is public auction, which is the normal disposal route for government equipment. It means trucks from this kind of fleet reach the private market in batches and on a schedule, rather than one at a time when something breaks.

Those loads meet a weight rule that is short to state and easy to get backwards.

The ceiling is the plain federal one: 80,000 lb gross, 20,000 lb on a single axle, 34,000 lb on a tandem. Texas grants no commodity variance of the kind Georgia and Kentucky write for named cargo.

The general permit adds ten per cent on the axle and five per cent on gross, with registration to 80,000 lb and a fifteen-thousand-dollar bond. What comes with it is liability: the permit holder answers for actual damage to load-restricted roads and bridges. Pennsylvania allocates road cost the same way, through a bond per linear mile and an excess-maintenance agreement; Ohio instead puts a signposting duty on the mine operator. Texas and Pennsylvania both put the road on the carrier.

And the two percentages run against each other. On a load-zoned road the permitted weight drops ten per cent below the maximum, so the permit’s five per cent on gross and the zone’s ten per cent reduction are not to be added.

Tex. Transp. Code § 621.101; Chapter 623 permits. Information, not legal advice.

Beyond the weight and the permit, the paperwork comes down to one sentence.

Everything after that sentence is a fix rather than a category. A lost title has a counter replacement. Where none exists there is a bonded route. Both are ordinary and neither stops a sale.

One Texas rule is worth knowing because it runs further than any other state on file. Texas brands a truck salvage only where the cost of repairs exceeds the actual cash value before the damage — effectively one hundred per cent, against eighty in Florida and sixty in Oklahoma. And it is a two-part test rather than pure arithmetic: there must also be damage to, or a missing, major component part.

The calculation also leaves out repainting and sales tax, which no other state on file excludes. For a truck whose damage is mostly cosmetic that moves the answer a long way.

Tex. Transp. Code § 501.091. Information, not legal advice, and only as current as the date the rule file was last verified.

All of that equipment is equipment we buy. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers off the county crushing work, farm trucks and grain hauls, flatbeds, day cabs and road tractors, rollbacks, box trucks, straight trucks, service bodies, and the pickups that go with a crew.

This is open plains country, so a truck on the Hockley County ground is easier to move than the distances suggest — a good deal easier than the 19.0 miles to the nearest registered site would imply.

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. Rust is not a disqualifier.
• It came out of a government fleet.Then it probably has better records than most, which helps. Around the Lubbock County crusher that is the normal history and it is a point in the truck’s favour.
• It has sat since the auction.That is common on the Hockley County ground and it is not a disqualifier. Tell us how long it sat and we’ll ask about seals, batteries and brakes.
• What about the title?We need one unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. Lost titles have a counter replacement; where none exists there’s a bonded route.
• Do you have to come out to look at it?Not necessarily. We can buy it remotely and arrange the tow, come to you and drive it away, come and tow it, or you can drive it to us.

Beyond a road programme ending, the reasons are personal ones. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A truck bought at auction for one job that outlived the job.

Places out across the Hockley County section roads, and over the line where the Lubbock County crews work, usually have one behind the shop.

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.