I have never seen a bona fide example of a recreational tower who was involved in an accident and found to be at fault due to being over his truck's GVWR. It gets posed quite often at various RV forums. Every now and then, someone can point to an experience where they were waved into a weigh station, were found to be over, and cited. However, those stories are exceptionally rare and that's not the scenario you asked about.

 

I don’t tow too often or too heavy but when I do, I use common sense. I pay attention to traffic ahead , I stay in the right lanes, keep it around 65, use my turn signals, and stay off my phone. I think this approach to be safer to my occupants and to those around me than worrying about the sticker (within reason).

 

I would think your primary civil liability would come into play as you swerve across lanes and head-on, or rear-end, clip someone, t-bone, etc. Overloaded or under loaded.

Your criminal liability would come into play as what was posted above about DOT rules. Tires etc. Over weight per ton of whats registered is like $60 per ton here in my state and they only mess with commercial drivers not RVs.

If you are overloaded you will need to worry about being partially at fault if someone hits you. As far as proving that, if you are following the Dot rules and pulling for personal use pretty much an F250 or F350SRW will have the capacity for any trailer a human with above room temperature IQ would pull with a single rear wheel truck.


And again an F250 in pretty much any trim can pull up to the CDL amount where you are 26,000 combined. Withstanding no special use such as also a heavy vehicle in itself (but that would put you into CDL anyway). Speaking commercial here and typical trailers you will see on the market.


No direct experience just an opinion and you should do your own legal research if you do any of this.

 

DOT rules are based on vehicle GVWR. F-250s over their payload ratings will be over their GVWRs, so six of one, half dozen of the other. You'd have to have a savvy lawyer to successfully argue the various statements here about "true" capability versus the "sticker." If a Class 2 10,000 lb GVWR truck is hauling 11,000 lbs, then it's over weight. You'd have to hope the sitting judge were up to speed on the nuances of 3/4 ton vs 1 ton trucks.

But, this is theoretical. As mentioned above, I haven't seen an article or other verifiable incident where this actually came into play that caused a driver to be at-fault or liable.

 

Well yeah if your truck is registered for 10,000 and you are 11,000 then totally agree.

The difference is when you hook to a trailer and my understanding is it goes off your registered GCW ratings and axles.

 

Lots of the same arguments that have been on the internet for years. Almost all speculation.
If you rear end some you do NOT get out of the responsabilty if you are UNDER the door sticker weights. Plain and simple, you did not stop in time, and it is your resoncabilty to keep your following distance to where you can always stop in time.
You loose control going around a corner and cross the line and hit another car you are not relived of liability because you wher under your door sticker weights.
You where diving too fast for the conditions, nothing else needs to be proved, over or under, you are at falt.
Let's be real, no one will die if you put 8,000lbs in the bed of your truck while it is sitting in you drive way. Same if you pull it ahead 5'.
Same if you go around the block at 20mph.
But if you go down the highway at 85mph, you might not have adequate control.
Point is there is NO NUMBER THAT MAKES YOU SAFE, there is no number that makes you automaticly unsafe.
A well maintained truck with an alert and responcible diver but over some number is probably a lot safer than the half stoned kid doing 85mph in his jacked up, hopped up diesel with 40" tires with an aggressive attitude, towing his 40' toyhauler, but under his door stickes weights.
If you are going to be over your door weights be sure to understand your truck WILL take longer to stop and will not corner the same.
Best thing to do is to slow down and increase following distance, as a side benefit you will have less stress and get better MPGs

 

Off topic but how do you like the Leaf Plus? I thought about waiting before I got my normal 19 leaf but figured I wouldn't actually need the extended range (have a 95ish mile rd trip commute) and they didn't change anything with the battery cooling. My range is about 165/170 on mine depending on how I drive. And it's doing pretty well here in AZ, so far, with the higher temps and A/C, so overall I'm not too disappointed that I didn't wait.

 

250 miles of range would be nice! Mine tells me I have about 110 miles of range on a good day.

To put things back on topic, how many overweight coworkers can I have as passengers in my 2015 Leaf before I need to worry about exceeding GVWR?

 

Payload of the leaf should be on the sticker in the door frame. Based on my Civic, I'm going to guess 850 pounds. so 4 overweight people total.

Are we doing Price is Right rules, closest without going over?

 

There is nothing wrong with you having that belief and I respect everyone's right to their own opinion. But, you should know that the government/law doesn't agree with you. There are many, many numbers that have a safe/unsafe point in the law's eyes. GVWR is one of those numbers. Same with Speed Limit. Same with time of day, if you're an under age driver in certain states. Age itself is another number that has a discrete safe/unsafe fulcrum. Blood Alcohol Content is another. And, so on.

In many states, if you are driving under the influence, you are automatically the at-fault party in an accident. I'm not entirely certain, but I believe that part of this is driven by logic and part of it is probably merely punitive. Either way, crossing that line means that that driver forfeits his ability to defend his driving actions. And, there is some question if a similar principle applies to GVWR.

Your examples of the converse relationship are a bit strange. Of course being within the law doesn't confer upon a person any protection -- being sober or being within GVWR doesn't indemnify a person against subsequent actions. It only means that those actions will be judged or evaluated based on what those actions were. Of course.

The question is two part: 1) In theory, does being over GVWR expose a person to a position of assumed liability? 2) In practice, has that ever happened -- has a person ever been cited or identified as the at-fault party on the basis of being over weight ... has anyone actually had GVWR violation be used as prima facie evidence of fault/liability?

I think the answer to (1) is Maybe and the answer to (2) is Not in the public record.

 

You cheated, didn't you? You're under by 10 lbs!

I once loaded my Leaf with four 30 lb propane tanks and two 20 lb propane tanks. Full. That's the most weight I've had in there. My range sunk pretty quick. (CO state law was violated that day. Too many tanks in an enclosed vehicle.)

 

Wow that was close, and no I did not look anything up, just went of a Civic having about 890, and figured battery's take up weight.

I once loaded about 450sqft of flooring flooring in the trunk of that Civic. Did not think anything of it till I got the cart to the car. It was on the stops for the drive home.

Back to topic, its fine to be overloaded as long as its under 5 miles to your house, and you stay under 45 right?

 

On that point I will disagree, based on experience. I used my half ton truck to tow my toy hauler between home and the storage lot. Without the toy in the garage, the tongue weight was a bit over 1,400 lbs. Almost 500 lbs over the truck's rating. I ended up with a cracked leaf spring shackle bracket (the part that attaches to the frame). That wasn't cheap to fix.

 

I think you missed my intent.
If the BAC is .08, does that mean you are completly safe at .079?
Same with speed at 80mph you are 100% safe and at 81mph you are 100% unsafe if the limit is 80mph?
What if there is dense fog, freezing rain, or snow, are you still 100% safe going 80mph?
I was not talking about what the law says is a max number, I was talking about actual TRUE safety.
Get right down to it anytime you drive a car on a public road, you are NOT 100% safe.
Also, I still have not seen anywhere that states that the OEMs weight numbers are a leagal limit.
To be a legal limit limit there has to be a law or regulation stating it is.
If you think about when most of the vehicle laws and regulations where writen manufactures did not include weight numbers on their vehicles, they cant reverance something that didnt exsist.
In fact many states laws DO cover weight raiting for tires that dont have them. 600lns per inch of tire weidth

 

When I retired from the army towed a large trailer with a 3.8l ford windstar. Didn’t know any better. Combined gvwr was close to 12k lbs. the vehicle did it. But after the trip I had a thumping noise in the engine which was one or more crank bearings.

moral of the story you can pull all kinds of numbers with any vehicle, but the longevity design of a vehicle is factored into the rated gvwr. Sure if you exceed it it will do the job, but the wear and tear could be putting longevity at risk.

dont try to tow with a Srw 250 with 3.7x gears what and an f-450 DRW 4:30 can tow. F-450 DRW can tow it all day long up and down hills .

Use common sense