You are driving a vehicle whose gross vehicle weight rating is 16 tones, and whose gross vehicle weight is 14 tones. Are you allowed to drive onto this bridge?

In the photo you are approaching a bridge with sign B-18 "no entry for vehicles with an actual total mass over 15 t" in front of it; cars are coming off the bridge from the opposite direction. When driving a vehicle with a maximum permissible mass of 16 t whose actual total mass is 14 t, you are allowed to drive onto this bridge. The answer is: yes.

The Regulation on road signs and signals states that sign B-18 means no traffic of vehicles whose actual total mass is greater than the value shown on the sign, and for a vehicle combination the ban applies to their combined mass. The key word is "actual": it means how much the vehicle weighs at this moment, with fuel, the driver and the load, not how much it could weigh at most according to the vehicle registration certificate. Your lorry may weigh up to 16 t, but today it weighs 14 t - less than the 15 t on the sign - so the bridge can carry it and entry is allowed. Loaded to the full 16 t, it could no longer enter. Sign B-18 protects the structure of the bridge; you must know the current mass of your vehicle from the transport documents or from weighing, because the Road Transport Inspectorate (Inspekcja Transportu Drogowego) weighs vehicles and compares the result with the sign.

Legal basis: § 20 para. 4 of the Regulation on road signs and signals; Art. 2 point 54 and 55 of the Road Traffic Act (Prawo o ruchu drogowym)