Good Day!

I think fourtenposi's issue might be that most DOT's don't distinguish between a guy hauling commercial (who probably should meet all these requirements), a guy hauling a multi-million dollar top fuel dragster (who probably should meet all these requirements), & a guy who races a door-slammer most weekends, trying to win a couple hundred dollars to help cover his hobby's cost (who argueable shouldn't need to meet all these requirements).

What's happened in the last decade or so is that lots of normal folks are pulling trailers that are WAY bigger than before. States are just starting to try to figure out who they want to regulate & how heavily they want to regulate them.

Keep in mind, too, the DOT folks aren't always being given clear direction. It's the state legislatures that write the rules, & they often aren't very clear.

An unpopular point to ponder: My neighbor races is 300" alcohol dragster as many weekends as he can afford to (which is darn few, unfortunately). He pulls a 48' gooseneck enclosed trailer with a '91 7.3 PS. He's as long as lots of tractor-trailers on the road. Is it completely absurd to suggest that someone probably ought to make sure he's physically able to drive this rig, & his equipment is safe? My neighbor is one of the good guys, but it's an unfortunate fact of life that there are many who are not.

I think the easy & maybe best answer to this is to look at stats. These really big privately-owned trailers have been on the road long enough by now to have accident data. As far as I'm concerned, if folks pulling big trailers don't cause many wrecks and deaths, we should NOT regulate them in any way. In fact, if this is so, we should be requiring our legislatures to CLEARLY inform DOT folks, so they don't waste our time.

Please accept in the spirit given - free, open debate about an important issue of the day.

Blessings!