[Stonehenge]

There is a weigh station about 15 minutes out of town. I'm going to drive out there this winter and sit down and talk with an officer, so I can get the straight scoop on this...

[Stonehenge]

Well, I've got some good news, and I've got some bad news....

First the bad news - today must've been a 'special enforcement' day on the roads of Wisconsin - everyone was getting pulled over...Us included. They escorted us to the nearest scale (we passed), then doled out $150.00 in fines for little things here and there. I don't dispute the things we got tickets on, and should've had the issues squared away beforehand. We had to make some fixes in a shopping center parking lot before they'd let us street the truck and trailer. We got everything fixed (took about 10 minutes), and we were back on the road.

But while I was chatting with the officer (who deals exclusively with trucks/trailers), I asked her the questions posed here. Here's the information I got:

The weight of your trailer does not get added onto your total combination weight unless it exceeds 10,000 pounds. So if you have a 16,000 pound truck and 10,000 pound trailer, no CDL required. She went so far as to explain that we could have a 25,990 truck and 10,000 trailer and still not need a CDL. But as soon as we have a 10,001 pound trailer with any of these scenarios, a CDL is required.

Thought you might like to know that.

[Pelican]

So is 10,001 registered weight or actual weight?

I wasn't aware of this, I've put my guys in compromising positions.

[Stonehenge]

Registered weight. Though you have to register the trailer for the weight rating it carries. I don't need to tell you about what happens if actual weight is over registered weight....

But like in the example of the 6,000# truck
HERE, you could tow a 20,000# trailer with that little truck and still not need a CDL. I didn't specifically ask about this scenario with the officer, because I knew we wouldn't come across it. But the other things she said corroborated the PDF I linked to here, so I have every reason to believe each of the scenarios in that example are accurate.