2017 New Mexico Statutes
Chapter 66 - Motor Vehicles
Article 7 - Traffic Laws; Signs, Signals and Markings; Accidents; Weight and Size; Traffic Safety
Part 5 - WEIGHT AND SIZE LIMITATIONS
Section 66-7-409 - Load limits on single axles, wheels and tires.
66-7-409. Load limits on single axles, wheels and tires.
A. Except as provided by Subsection D of this section, the gross weight imposed on the highway by the wheels of any one axle of a vehicle shall not exceed twenty-one thousand six hundred pounds nor shall any one wheel carry a load in excess of eleven thousand pounds.
B. For the purposes of Sections 66-7-401 through 66-7-416 NMSA 1978, a single-axle load is defined as the total load transmitted to the road by all wheels whose centers are included between two parallel transverse vertical planes forty inches or less apart extending across the full width of the vehicle. A tandem axle load is defined as the total load transmitted to the road by all wheels whose centers are included between two parallel transverse vertical planes more than forty inches apart but less than one hundred twenty inches apart, extending across the full width of the vehicle. The allowed load on tandem axles shall not exceed the gross weight given in Section 66-7-410 NMSA 1978 for the respective distance between the axles.
C. No wheel equipped with pneumatic, solid rubber or cushion tires shall carry a load in excess of six hundred pounds for each inch of tire width. The width of pneumatic tires shall be taken at the manufacturer's rating. The width of solid rubber and cushion tires shall be measured at the flange of the rim.
D. The division shall by rule establish standard weight limits for the wheels of any one vehicle axle and any one wheel that allow for the gross weight limitation increases authorized for natural gas vehicles.
History: 1953 Comp., 64-7-409, enacted by Laws 1978, ch. 35, 480; 1993, ch. 328, 5; 2016, ch. 70, 2.
