The California Highway Patrol (CHP) says that the weight of a forklift was too much for a trailer, causing a serious structural collapse at a scale house.
CHP said over the weekend that the trailer failure occurred at their Otey Mesa Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Facility.
According to CHP, the tractor trailer was determined to be overweight after it crossed the scale.
CHP says that the scaled weight at the time of the incident was Axle 1: 11060, Axles 2 and 3: 36260, and Axles 4 and 5: 30560. CHP confirmed that the gross vehicle was 77,880 lbs. The dual axle limit in California is 34,000 lbs.
The trucking company was told to make the load legal before they would be allowed to leave the facility.
CHP says that “it appears the failure occurred after X4/5 were slid to the rear and the extra weight of a forklift was added to the trailer.“
The trailer frame failure caused the truck’s load to fall to the ground.
CHP pointed out that from a safety standpoint, it could have been much worse. “Fortunately this happened in our facility and not on the freeway,” troopers said.
Several Facebook users pointed out that the condition of the trailer, not the forklift, was probably the real problem.
