what is the purpose of weigh scales on the interstate/highways
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Truck sizes are fairly uniform, with most being 53 feet long and 100″ tall/wide. To simplify, this is about 3,800 cubic feet of space they can fill.
If you’re carrying something heavy, like water, filling the entire trailer would weigh over 200,000 lbs. This is way too heavy for the road or the brakes but the engine could pull it, so you end up with a massive safety challenge.
The weigh stations make sure the truck stays within a safe limit, which, for water, is closer to 1/3 full.
This is why freight consolidation is a thing. Put simply, freight consolidation is when you mix heavy products with light products to fill the space. It’s very expensive to move products with a trailer, but if you find a trailer that already has 90% of it’s weight capacity with something heavy, like water, you can fill the rest of the truck with a very light product, like popcorn, and everybody wins.
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