In 16 years and will over a million miles of no issues, I almost ruined it all by being stupid. I've been hauling the same loads to the save place for the last 6 years. It's always roughly the same material and weights and never had an issue when I weigh them out. Well they changed the material and with it being moved to the yard I didn't even check it like I normally do. When I hooked to it and got moving my first thought was I either weigh 120k or my trucks having the same issue it had the previous two weeks (low power due to a fuel valve issue). Since it's always the same material I just assumed it was the truck again. Until a quarter of the trip later and I hit my first downhill stretch.

After I realized I checked the bills and it showed way to much for gross weight. So I stopped and scaled and and almost had a panic attack. I managed to get it back and redone without any issue, but it's something I'll never do again. The reason I stopped scaling every load is because the company's card rejects it every other time, and if I pay it takes constant calls to get reimbursed. They have a scale at the shippers, so I would've done it there, but the yard driver brought it in and they are supposed to scale it too.

While it's still completely my mistake, its insane just how many people overlooked it. The shippers had to see the weights as they typed it in, and the people loading it should've asked with just how full the trailer was. The yards driver is supposed to scale everything they bring to the yard, and likely hasn't had low power issues. Then dispatch looked it over before leaving it out for me. For me it was just a perfect timing to be stupid. I had to leave that night to get a paycheck enough to cover bills that week, and the trucks been behaving like that recently. There was high wind, so my mind just added that as other things I noticed. Then the one simple thing, denial that it could ever be that heavy. When I called up the company and let them know, they didn't believe me. I didn't show anyone proof though, and the shipper didn't ask for any. They just removed half and I went back out.

The moral of this story is don't ignore yourself when you know something's wrong just because you have bills to pay, and routine and over confidence can be a horrible combination.