OCALA - Carlos Reinoso sat with the door of his dump truck slung open and his legs dangling over the side. He couldn't have looked more bored.
The Cuban immigrant chain smoked as the truck idled beneath him, its diesel fumes mixing with the pungent aroma of 22.4 tons of hot asphalt in the bed behind him.
Florida Department of Transportation Sgt. Quincy Linan had pulled him over at 7 a.m. earlier this month on Northwest Blitchton Road.
Linan's job is to find trucks exceeding the state's weight limit. Tractor-trailers, along with their freight, are not supposed to weigh more than 80,000 pounds. Dump trucks, like Reinoso's, shouldn't weigh more than 64,000 pounds to 70,000 pounds, based on their wheel size.
"It's like a cat-and-mouse game," Linan said. "We try to catch them. They try to get away."
But in this game, the cats don't have much in the way of fangs or claws.
As for the mice?
Well, they sit bored in the cab of their trucks, slightly annoyed and anxious to get back to work.
Drivers of overweight vehicles can afford not to be too worried, because the law is stacked in their favor. Fines for violations are small, FDOT inspectors are stretched too thin and the trucking industry in Florida is strong.
As a result, as much as 30 percent of tractor-trailers and dump trucks are overweight, experts estimate, posing a danger to other motorists and damaging road and bridge infrastructure.
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