Sometimes, freight or cargo doesn’t fit within standard load arrangements or containers. In these cases, you can still ship so-called “oversized loads,” but it’s important to know how this may change the shipping process, including your costs, your shipping timeline, and what transportation options are available to you.
If your business ships or receives oversized loads frequently, you need to know a few key things, such as whether your loads are oversized and what legal regulations you need to keep in mind.
Let us break down five major things one by one.
What Is Considered an Oversized Load?
An “oversized load” in shipping is any vehicle or other shipment that is:
- Wider than 8’6”
- With a gross vehicle weight or GVW of over 80,000 pounds
- With a max height limit of 13’6” (in most states)
These federal oversized load standards also include extra classifications for legal vehicle weights. Oversized vehicles are:
- Over 80,000 pounds in GVW
- Have at least 20,000 pounds of single-axle weight
- Have at least 34,000 pounds in tandem axle weight
As you can imagine, plenty of loads qualify as oversized, which may require some extra planning and preparation on your part or the part of your transportation service!
Five Things To Know About Shipping Oversized Loads
When shipping oversized loads, you should keep a few key things in mind to ensure the process goes smoothly.
1. Know If Your Load Is Actually Oversized
For starters, ensure that any load you plan to ship is oversized. Weight restrictions for vehicles, for example, are applied on a per-axle basis.
So a shipment may not exceed the total weight limit, but it might still count as oversized because it exceeds the per-axle limits. To get around this, you can adjust your load to redistribute the weight on each axle, eliminating the need for special and potentially costly permits.
Measure and weigh your loads carefully to know when they are oversized and when you need to move things around on your vehicle, like a flatbed truck. This is doubly important since flatbed drivers have to obtain oversized permits and can’t obtain a permit if the load can be broken down in size or weight.
2. Know the Legal Restrictions on Oversized Shipping
You should also know all of the legal restrictions for oversized shipping. In most states, the maximum legal height limit for flatbed truck shipments is 102 inches. Legal length is usually less than 53 feet.
If your cargo meets or exceeds any of these limitations, you may need to take extra precautions for shipping the cargo or stick to certain routes that can accommodate cargo of its size.
3. Know When You Need Travel Escorts
Travel escorts or so-called pilot vehicles are sometimes necessary for cargo shipments over 12 feet wide. Travel escorts warn flatbed drivers of circumstances like bridges, construction zones, and other potential hazards that may require extra careful driving or attention.
Travel escorts may be necessary, but they can also increase the price for oversized shipping (since you have to pay for hotels, per-mile rates for the travel escort vehicles, etc.).
4. Know How Restrictions Can Impact Your Schedule
Shipping oversized loads often come with restrictions or delays. These may necessarily impact your overall schedule. For example, most states require oversized loads with travel escorts to be off the road 30 minutes after sunset on Monday through Friday, preventing those vehicles from traveling on weekends or over the holidays.
Be sure to account for these potential schedule impacts so you can adjust your expectations accordingly.
5. Know the Proper Equipment To Use
Lastly, ensure that you use the right equipment for loading and shipping oversized loads. For instance, you may need a crane or a forklift to load oversized cargo onto a flatbed truck.
Buying or renting this equipment ahead of time can help you get your oversized load on the road more quickly and minimize delays.
Additional Considerations for Shipping Oversized Loads
Aside from the above five major factors, there are a few other considerations to consider when shipping oversized loads.
Freight Can Be Oversized by Height or Weight
Firstly, your freight may be oversized by either height or weight (or both). Don't assume that it's a standard-size shipment just because your load weighs less than the federal standard for oversized cargo. As noted above, freight can be oversized if it exceeds maximum height or length limitations.
Planning Ahead Can Ease the Process
Secondly, shipping oversized loads require lots of planning and preparation on your part and the part of your transportation specialist. Good planning can help ease the process and streamline shipping from start to finish.
It would help if you tried to plan ahead to:
- Minimize schedule delays and pick out the most efficient route if time is of the essence
- Minimize high costs or, if things like travel escorts are necessary, budget for those costs while minimizing their impact on your finances
- Understand what equipment you may need to rent or purchase to load your oversized cargo into the transportation vehicle
- And more
Planning is key to any successful shipping for any size load, but it’s even more important when shipping oversized cargo!
Why Is Oversized Load Shipping Important?
Oversized load shipping is important because not all cargo fits within neat little boxes or standard shipment sizes! For instance, a business may require an irregularly shaped piece of equipment or machine that weighs more than average and doesn’t fit within a normal cargo container.
Fortunately, oversized load shipping allows the business to move that equipment from one place to the other, such as moving it from a manufacturing facility to a producing facility where it will be used to make end consumer products.
Oversized shipping loads are subject to specific requirements and restrictions to improve road safety for transportation carriers and the general public. Because oversized loads may require special driving or prevent drivers from moving down certain roads, keeping these restrictions and policies in mind can improve safety and prevent you from having to delay your transportation schedule even further.
Shipping Oversized Loads With a Transportation Provider
No matter what you need to ship, you’ll be better off shipping your oversized loads with the right transportation provider. Experienced transportation providers:
- Know all the best routes for moving oversized cargo from one place to another.
- May have a diverse, comprehensive network of experienced carriers and truckers who can move your equipment from place to place.
- Can connect you to the best cargo rates.
- And more
It’s far better to rely on an experienced transportation provider when moving oversized loads than to ship cargo with these requirements yourself. A lot can go wrong when moving oversized cargo from place to place.
You may run into schedule delays, could be fined by the local authorities, or make it part way through a journey only to discover that your cargo can’t complete the journey on the selected routes due to one or more hazards or space limitations.
Transportation providers can cut through all of these questions and find the best routes with the best prices for your needs.
The Bottom Line
As you can see, shipping oversized loads can be trickier and more complex than shipping standard loads or freight. However, it’s more than possible to regularly ship oversized loads from one facility to another with the right transportation provider.
As experienced end-to-end transportation specialists, RPM is well-equipped and ready to help move your oversized freight wherever it needs to be. With our intuitive and integrated app and trusted relationships with qualified carriers, we’re the best option for any freight needs on your docket.
Contact us today to learn more.
Sources:
Oversize/Overweight Load Permits - FHWA Freight Management and Operations | FHWA
Rules Pertaining to Transport Permits for the Movement of Extra-Legal Vehicles or Loads | Colorado Department of Transportation
Pilot Car / Escort Vehicle Laws and Requirements By State | Oversize.io
