Vehicle Code 35551a VC (Overweight Vehicles in California)

You or your company can face criminal penalties under California Vehicle Code 35551a —known as an “overweight citation”—for driving a vehicle that exceeds a specified weight.¹

California’s overweight vehicles law exists largely to protect the condition of the state’s highways.²

In contrast, most other criminal laws set out in the California Vehicle Code—such as laws against driving under the influence and tampering with vehicle identification numbers—exist because of concerns about road safety or auto theft.

Note that this offense of frequently charged together with Vehicle Code 34506 -- failure to comply with CHP rules by a commercial vehicle.

How Vehicle Code 35551 defines an overweight vehicle

The legal definition of driving an overweight vehicle is simply to drive a vehicle on a “highway” if the vehicle’s weight exceeds the limits set out in this and a related statute, Vehicle Code 35551.5 VC.³

A “highway” means any road or other place that is publicly maintained and open to the public for purposes of vehicular travel.⁴ (This definition also applies to other criminal sections of the Vehicle Code, such as Vehicle Code 23221 VC drinking alcohol in a motor vehicle.)

VC 35551

The exact weight limit for a particular vehicle depends on two factors:

1. The number of axles the vehicle has; and
2. The distance between any group of two (2) or more consecutive axles, measured from their extremes.⁵

The permitted weights range from a low of thirty-four thousand (34,000) pounds for vehicles with consecutive axles that are eight (8) or fewer feet apart, to a high of eighty thousand (80,000) pounds for vehicles with four (4) or more axles where the consecutive axles are fifty-seven (57) or more feet apart.⁶

In addition, two consecutive sets of tandem axles may carry additional weight (up to sixty-eight thousand (68,000) pounds total) if the overall distance between the first and last axles of the consecutive sets of tandem axles is thirty-six (36) feet or more.⁷

Example: Luis runs a trucking company that delivers containers from the Port of Long Beach to railroad freight yards. The containers arrive from other countries and often have been packed without consideration for the state’s weight limits.

One day a tanker from China arrives late, carrying a number of containers. Luis knows these containers need to move out quickly in order to meet a deadline. Hal, a driver for Luis’s company, transports the containers to a weigh station and reports to Luis that they will make his vehicle overweight.

But Luis is anxious to meet his deadline, and so he tells Hal to drive the containers anyway.

Luis and his company may end up with an overweight citation.

VC 35551.5

Alternatively, owners of vehicles that contain a trailer or semi-trailer may choose instead to have a vehicle’s maximum weight determined under VC 35551.5. This statute provides for:

1. A maximum weight of eighteen thousand (18,000) pounds imposed by the wheels of any one axle;
2. A maximum weight of nine thousand five hundred (9,500) pounds upon the wheel or wheels supporting one end of any axle; and
3. A maximum total gross weight imposed by any group of two (2) or more consecutive axles (for vehicles with consecutive axles that are eighteen (18) or fewer feet apart), OR a maximum total gross weight imposed by the entire vehicle (for vehicles whose consecutive axles are more than eighteen (18) feet apart), which varies depending on the distance between the first and last of the consecutive axles.⁸

Exception for interstate highways

California Vehicle Code 35551 and 35551.5 VC do not apply to federal interstate highways, such as I-5, I-10 and I-80.⁹ 

Example: Marcy is a truck driver. She picks up a load at the Port of Oakland and takes it to Interstate 80, then drives east on the interstate toward the Sierras. Marcy has a hunch that her load is overweight, but she is anxious to meet a deadline and does nothing about it.

If a California law enforcement officer stops Marcy on I-80 and discovers her vehicle is overweight, she is not guilty under California’s law against driving overweight vehicles.

However, if you drive on an interstate with an overweight vehicle, you may need to be concerned about federal penalties for violating federal vehicle weight limits.¹⁰

Penalties for California overweight citations

In most cases, driving an overweight vehicle is a misdemeanor in California law.¹¹

The potential penalties are:

• Misdemeanor (summary) probation;
• Up to six (6) months in county jail; and/or
• A fine of up to one thousand dollars ($1,000).¹²

The exception is if the amount of excess weight is less than four thousand five hundred one pounds (4,501). In this case, VC 35551 is only a California infraction.¹³

The penalty for overweight vehicles as an infraction is a fine of two hundred fifty dollars ($250).¹⁴

Legal defenses

There is an exception to California’s overweight vehicle law for vehicles that are:

1. In the immediate vicinity of an unloading or loading area; and
2. Actually preparing for or in the process of unloading or unloading.¹⁵

This exception applies only if the vehicle’s being overweight is incidental to and necessitated by the loading or unloading.¹⁶

According to Long Beach criminal defense attorney Elisa Guadan¹⁷:

“I’ve seen a number of cases where a police officer issued an overweight citation to a driver of a truck that was still getting ready for transport. In some of these cases, the driver had not even had a chance to weigh the vehicle to see if it met the weight limits. If a driver’s English is poor, he or she may not be able to explain that to the officer, and his/her company gets cited.”

As a result, one of the more common legal defenses to an overweight vehicle citation is that the vehicle falls under the exception for trucks that haven’t finalized their loads yet.

Call us for help…

Call us for help

For questions about the crime of Vehicle Code 35551 VC overweight vehicles, or to discuss your case confidentially with one of our California criminal defense attorneys, do not hesitate to contact us at Shouse Law Group.

We have local criminal law offices in and around Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange County, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, San Jose, Oakland, the San Francisco Bay area, and several nearby cities.

Legal References: