This was the 3rd link on a google search of Texas Farm trailer tags. Always count on TexAgs to be in the middle of relevant topics.

And I just re-read it for the third time before realizing it was an old thread that I had posted on. (which I did not remember doing)! Got a good chuckle…

We are all pointing at you and laughing!

Cheap/free entertainment…like none other!

Aggiehank02 said:

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This was the 3rd link on a google search of Texas Farm trailer tags. Always count on TexAgs to be in the middle of relevant topics.

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Google weights its searches based on your prior search and page visit history.

Back in the 1980s I worked for a custom harvester out of Seymour. He had about 20 acres of wheat behind his house so every truck on the harvest operation had farm tags. Seeing as how 90% of the work these trucks did was out of state (OK, KS, NE, SD), we never got questioned about it.

We did have a small run of wheat to cut in Seymour every year, though. One day one of the trucks got pulled over by DPS, and the driver got quizzed about whose wheat was in the truck. Since the wheat in the truck didn't belong to the owner, at that point it was a commercial load. The driver got a ticket (owner paid it). The next week we got new non-farm plates for all the trucks.

I believe you might be completely missing the actual benefit of farm tags ~ it is not the pennies you save on yearly registration, it is a matter of the benefits derived from farm plates with a Class C non-CDL license vs. commercial plates & Class A CDL license. Commercial plates and a Class A CDL is exponentially more expensive (for us) with only negative cascading possibilities for us over time if we had fallen into the commercial trap that was being pushed on us.

(1) I can haul more weight with farm tags and a Class C non-CDL license i.e. a 26,000 GVWR truck and 20,000 pound GVWR trailer (or more) vs. 26,000 GCWR combined weight for both truck and trailer without Class A CDL,

(2) farm plates are the legal mechanism that saves us and anyone else from being forced into a "commercial" status that would subject us to FMSCA safety and CDL regulations

(3) farm insurance is a fraction of the cost of commercial insurance with far greater levels of coverage

I don't need the additional towing capacity often...every winter I load up on round bales, square bales, cubes & horse feed, etc....every spring I sell calves / dry cows & buy cows - sometimes I need to rebuild my working pens and every summer I ship 50-60 green broke quarter horses south just short of the border with Mexico (a few years ago, we shipped them all the way into mexico). The weight adds up very quickly.

For years I thought I was smart and I was mitigating risk by hiring companies to handle my transportation - I missed the FMSCA safety and CDL rule changes. Instead of mitigating risk, I was providing the federal government with a track record for establishing that I was an "employer" and if they really wanted to push the issue, they could have claimed that i was a "motor carrier" engaged in international shipping because I was selling and transporting horses into Mexico - EVEN THOUGH WE DID NOT OWN A TRUCK OR TRAILER IN THE RANCH'S NAME.

I did have a 1-ton truck, a livestock trailer, a horse trailer and a flatbed trailer in my personal name. There was a time when I did run farm plates - I did not ever mind the DPS Troopers that hovered around when it was time to move round bales - they are all business, but, if you did not provide them with any violations to ticket you for then you had nothing to worry about. What I did not like was the arrogant a-hole DPS troopers fresh out of the academy using me for a training exercise asking me all the questions trying to trip me up in my answers about my farm tags when I did not misuse or abuse the farm plate privilege. It did not happen often, but it happened more than 2-3 times - they would waste an hour of my time, they would draw wild conclusions that were not anywhere close to being true, one of these punks kept trying to trap me into "A" or "B" situations with both "A" and "B" being a violation and neither "A" or "B" being true - I was raised to be respectful and not to argue with police officers - that is all DPS officers want to do is engage a person in an argument and it was clear that arguing with DPS Troopers was going to get me in more trouble far worse than the $200 - $300 or so that I was saving. So I stopped buying the farm plates. It just was not worth the hassle.

Then when I actually did need farm plates, my yearly cycle is such that I only need the extra towing capacity 3 or so times per year - Fall for hay and winter supplies, Spring for selling calves / dry cows and Summer for transporting green broke Quarter horses to the U.S. - Mexico border.

Prior to that, for 20-25 or so years, I never had a problem hiring companies to handle my transportation. Not too many years ago, there were two incidents in 1 year 3-4 months apart and they tracked right back to me / the ranch. You just do not ever want to tangle with the DPS / FMSCA safety or commercial regs - they can easily force you over a barrel into a position where you cannot win. Thank God nobody was killed or hurt (on numerous different levels from what I personally would have felt all the way through liability issues). DPS investigated both incidents and I was the person that hired both "commercial" vehicles to transport livestock for me and I had done this numerous times over the previous 3-4-5 years (without federal authorization to hire commercial transportation under any FMSCA designation). I thought the letter I received was a joke and gave it to my attorney. it was not a joke and there was no misunderstanding - I was being ordered to complete all the federal paperwork, etc. and obtain all of the commercial insurance coverage necessary to bring me into compliance and I was probably headed towards large FMSCR fines if I completed the paperwork. FMSCA's stated goal is to remove the bottom 10% of drivers / bottom 10% of "motor carriers" from the road every year - even though my business did not own any trucks and I personally did not own any trucks engaged in "commercial" activities that were not farm (ranch) related - DPS / FMSCA can determine that you are an "employer" or even a commercial carrier / motor carrier operating without authorization...operating without a Class A CDL...and two significant incidents can place you in the bottom 10% which makes you a target.

They do everything they possibly can to force you down the commercial path and to force you to get a commercial Class A CDL with outrageous commercial insurance coverage based on the number of checks I had written to hire others to "commercially" drive for me - even though I hired the companies that transported livestock for me, not the individual drivers.

The fines for commercial safety and CDL violations are outrageously expensive i.e. the big ones are $10K - $15K, $125 per pound overweight, etc.
On top of that, one of my favorite ways FMSCA works is that when you are "targeted" and get in a wreck, FMSCA gives the opposing attorney your entire history i.e. 2 significant wrecks in my case which would show a history of who knows what even though I did not own a truck or horse trailer / livestock trailer in the business' name. They do not even hide the fact that they "target" you by every means possible to get you off the streets - you will ring the FMSCA buzzer everytime you pass one of the FMSCA sensors no matter what state you are in and an enforcement officer will be deployed to greet you. And they are not deployed just to check on you, they are deployed to write the most outrageous, restrictive and harshest tickets for the most expensive violations they can find.

I have not personally been in a wreck or personally received a ticket in over 20+ years but, evidently, I did hire a few individuals that had (indirectly)- including two incidents while hired to drive for me (even though I hired the companies that hired the drivers)

THE ONLY THING THAT LEGITIMATELY AND LEGALLY SHIELDS ME OR ANYONE ELSE FROM "COMMERCIAL" FMSCA ISSUES IS FARM PLATES ON AT LEAST THE FARM TRAILERS - FARM PLATES PROBABLY WORK EVEN BETTER WHEN PAIRED WITH A DEDICATED FARM TRUCK. WITHOUT FARM PLATES, THE ONLY OTHER OPTION WOULD BE A CLASS A CDL...WITH FMSCA SAFETY ISSUES...WITH CDL ISSUES...AND FMSCR FINES.

I had my tax attorney working on this for me - I don't recall why I thought he was the right person to handle this because if I knew then what I know now, the situation I was in probably required someone with expertise in this area. My transportation costs were skyrocketing anyway so when my attorney told me me the options he worked out for me were to get Farm Plates for everything -OR- get my Commercial Class A CDL and all of the negative options involved with that - paying for farm tags was an easy "no brainer" type decision to make.

I do not push the grey areas and I stay under weight so Texas Farm tag restrictions do not bother me. We purchased two low mile pre-def freightliners (a fl80 and a fl60) with cummins diesels that I will never really drive anywhere anyway (the fl60 does not have farm truck plates but it is under CDL - we did not get farm plates for the fl60 because we might pull our 5th wheel travel trailer, etc. "non-farm" related activities (which is absolutely ridiculous because we have never taken a 7 consecutive day vacation in the past 40 years - so it will probably very quickly end up a farm truck before this spring). The two trucks together were cost effective solutions, they are simple to work on, they will tow anything and they will by far outlast me / the rest of my life. Farm tags are 1,000% better than keeping the federal logs / not turning logs into the Federal Government which makes them priceless - keeping track of the logs and constant changes to the regulations would be a full time job for at least one person maybe two. The two farm trucks alone were cheaper than the fines for the commercial violations that they can use to nail any truck (and they literally have a set of laws they can manipulate in any direction to generate a violation for any vehicle)

Farm plates means that I do not need to investigate every single person that drives for me. I do not need to do background checks on the businesses I no longer hire to handle our transportation. I do not need to keep logs for every load shipped through every random driver. I can focus on running a business instead of the DPS / FMSCA and non-stop paperwork for the remainder of my life.

The best part of now running farm tags is that the price of farm insurance is a fraction of the price for "commercial" insurance for greater levels of coverage.

After having 2 incidents (or near misses) in 3 months, I was lucky in that one of our friends referred us to a very good agent and he, in turn, understood exactly what I was looking for and the best, least expensive way to provide what I wanted: across the board, I carry an extra $10 million liability policy on myself no matter what I drive / tow (farm vehicle or not) and $5 million full coverage per truck. On top of that, I rolled in all of our personal vehicles (a 61 C10, a 62 stingray, late model tahoe, a new VW atlas and a Chevy 1-ton Duramax which should have been a "farm truck"; 7 trailers; a 5th wheel travel trailer; farm equipment including 2 tractors, a skid steer loader, an old rough terrain forklift; the toys we have including 2 four wheelers and a side-by-side Polaris; the offsite 5,000 square foot building and it contents where we store everything (because we had theft issues at the ranch). It is now much easier to keep track of our insurance costs and to compare prices yearly before renewing - and it really did not cost that much more. Compared to what we were paying, the total cost for us to add two freightliner trucks with full coverage was about $4K per year with an excessive but necessary personal liability policy. Additionally, the old cars we have cost us more than the freightliners - I do not even know if they even still run - even though I look at the covers they sit under nearly every single day, I had completely forgotten that we were insuring two old cars that have not been driven in 15-20 years - once we get rid of the C10 and old corvette, our cost for insurance will be the same as it was before we bought the freightliners and for much better coverage.
I have never had an agent suggest a blanket large liability policy across everything I drive - this was the best coverage suggestion I have ever received.

Without farm tags, unless I got a Class A CDL, I could not have hauled a skid steer loader or rough terrain forklift without going over the Class C non-CDL weight restriction - without farm plates, the cost of commercial insurance would have forced radical changes probably in directions that we could not live with or otherwise afford - that is what farm trucks and farm trailers do for us.

The point is that 3-4 times per year I need to tow more weight than I otherwise could without farm plates - now, I can buy round bale permits for the 1-2-3 days we transport round bales; I want to be over-covered without going broke which I could not do without farm plates; I do not ever want to be tied at the hip to FMSCA filling out paperwork for the Federal government every single day while constantly paying FMSCA fines - again, that is what farm plates do for us and that is priceless for me; I want to be worry free - that is what having farm tags on one truck and all but two of our trailers does for me that I could not otherwise do if forced down a commercial vehicle path.

It might not work out the same for others, but farm plates with a designated farm truck that would be primarily worked for x number of days during three short seasons of the year absolutely did work for us - I cannot say with certainty exactly how much it did save us but it was a significant amount of money.

You can rip on farm plates all you want and I even think it is funny but if a person ever finds themselves headed towards or being forced towards the commercial FMSCA path, farm plates and a designated farm truck might save that person tens of thousands of dollars.

Dude. Ima throw you a star just for typing all that.