Alabama Oversize Load Permits, Regulations & Axle Rules

Permitted loads move sunrise to sunset once you're over legal size or weight. Saturday daylight is fine. Sunday is off entirely. Six holidays close travel completely: New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. The blackout runs wider than the calendar day, from sunset the evening before to sunrise the morning after, so one holiday can pull three or four days out of a schedule.

A second set of holidays closes only the permit office: Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents Day, Confederate Memorial Day, Jefferson Davis's Birthday, Juneteenth, Columbus Day, and Veterans Day. Hold a permit already and you can still run those days. You just can't get a new one issued.

Superloads flip the daylight rule. Most have to move at night, 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM, Sunday through Thursday, unless the permit office approves a different window. Weather stops any load regardless of the clock: no movement when conditions are hazardous or visibility drops below 500 feet, and the driver has to reach the first safe pull-off and wait. Carriers running several loads together keep at least a half-mile between vehicles and pull clear if traffic starts backing up behind them. No city rush-hour curfews for permitted loads, and no around-the-clock running. Standard loads stay in daylight, superloads in the overnight window.

Alabama carves out several commodities from the general rules, and the gaps are wide enough to change how you plan a move.

Several are exempt outright. Poles, logs, lumber, laminated wood building materials, structural steel, piping, and timber carry no length limit, and because Alabama folds overhang into its length measurement, that relief covers overhang too. Purpose-built livestock haulers are exempt from length up to 65 feet overall. Farm and agricultural equipment skips the heavy-commodity permit requirement, and trucks hauling refrigerated milk for human consumption are exempt from weight limits. Auto and car haulers run up to 65 feet overall, or 75 feet stinger-steered, with overhang capped at 3 feet front and 4 feet rear. Cotton wagons and module movers can be towed on non-interstate roads: two wagons max, each no wider than 10 feet, truck and wagons together under 85 feet. Aside from the advance route approval the widest manufactured homes need, Alabama sets no seasonal windows or commodity routing beyond the daylight and holiday rules.

Alabama uses the term superload. A load reaches that tier the moment it exceeds any one of four thresholds: more than 16 feet wide, 16 feet high, 150 feet long, or 300,000 pounds gross. You have to be over the number, not at it. A superload is no same-day permit: it's documentation-heavy and reviewed by hand, so file well ahead. Alabama publishes no fixed lead time, but the drawings, bridge analysis, and escort coordination below all take time.

ALDOT wants a justification letter covering the product, its origin and destination, the delivery date, a statement that the load can't be reduced, and why rail or barge won't work. Include shop drawings of the load dimensions and an axle-configuration drawing with spacings and per-axle weights. From there the requirements branch by what makes the load a superload. Overweight superloads trigger a Special Work Authorization, which routes the move to ALDOT's Bridge Rating Office to analyze every structure on the route. Loads over 16'6" tall add utility notification; loads over 16'5" need a bucket truck to clear overhead lines. Every superload needs a route survey, a lighting plan that keeps the whole load visible from any direction, city or county engineer approval for travel on local roads, and at least two law-enforcement escorts coordinated through the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA). Mind the sequence: the permit office pre-approves the move before the state police are contacted to schedule escorts. Most superloads run at night, and ALDOT may require extra insurance against road or bridge damage.

Every superload requires a detailed route survey, and the carrier or its agent runs it, not the state. For tall loads the survey goes past drawing a line on a map. It has to flag every conflict point by milepost, spell out how each one gets handled or avoided (including which interchange off-ramps to use), and mark the safe spots where the load can pull clear.

Survey duties also attach below the full superload tier. Any load over 16'6" tall triggers utility notification, with the carrier contacting the district offices and the utility and traffic-signal owners along the route; a bucket truck is required once height exceeds 16'5". On weight, the Special Work Authorization is the structural survey: the Bridge Rating Office reviews every bridge on the route before the move clears, so for a heavy load that review is effectively on file before the permit finalizes. Annual permits carrying gross weights over 100,000 pounds also route through the department in advance instead of moving freely. Once set, the route binds the move: no deviation, the routing document rides in the truck, and the carrier obeys every posted or permit-conditioned bridge and highway load limit. ALDOT publishes a restricted-bridge list, and checking your route against it is part of planning any heavy move here.

Alabama draws a clear line between civilian pilot/escort vehicles and law enforcement. Certified civilian escorts handle the broad middle of the oversize range, fronting or trailing the load, warning traffic, and carrying a height pole on loads over 15'6". Law enforcement steps in for the extremes: any load longer than 150 feet needs both front and rear law-enforcement escorts, and every superload needs a minimum of two sworn officers regardless of which dimension pushed it there.

Those escorts are coordinated through the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA). The state defines a qualifying escort narrowly: a state trooper, a county sheriff or deputy, or a city police officer, in a marked vehicle with blue lights. Constables can't escort oversize or overweight loads. Scheduling runs through ALEA, but the order matters: the permit office pre-approves the move first, and only then is ALEA contacted to arrange escorts.