Hotshot Connect Forum :: Safety Tips

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Safety Tips

• Watch how other drivers secure their loads, no matter how long you have been pulling platform trailers.

• Use good footgear for climbing.

• Have good foul-weather gear to wear.

• Carry plenty of extra gloves to keep your hands warm and dry in the snow and change them often.

• Avoid climbing whenever possible, especially in low-light or high wind conditions.

• Have the forklift operator lift your tarps onto your load or place them on top of a bundle before it is put on the trailer.

• Watch your footing, especially after you have covered the load with the tarp and can no longer see gaps in the freight.

• Take your time. Never be in a hurry to secure your load.

• When tightening chain binders, grip the trailer with one hand and rock the cheater bar with the other. If you pull with both hands and your feet slip out from under you, that pipe can go flying.

• Be careful when throwing chains or belts over the load not to hit anyone on the other side.

• Take it easy going into corners or turns. Some company policies mandate taking ramps at 10 mph below the posted speed.

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Cargo Care: Tying It On
Proper load management saves time, money and lives.

By Deborah Lockridge
Senior Editor

T
hree people died last August when a commuter train ran into a tractor-trailer carrying steel coils in Portage, IN. A 19-ton coil broke loose and smashed into the lead car of the train. Among other violations, police cited the truck driver for having an improperly secured load.

In March 1998, a 47,000-pound roll of steel fell from a flatbed truck onto Interstate 20/59 in Birmingham, AL. While no lives were lost, it punched seven holes in the pavement, and was one of a string of truck accidents that led state lawmakers to call for stricter truck regulation.

Last December, a 7-foot section of pipe fell off a truck on a Long Island highway and killed Alan Pakula, director of movies such as “All the President’s Men” and “Sophie’s Choice.” Widespread media coverage brought load securement to the attention of the nation.

Proper load securement can be a matter of life and death. It also can mean fewer cargo claims and avoiding tickets — or even lawsuits — for improper tiedowns. New load securement regulations are in the works, but the basic principles remain the same: Make sure you’ve got enough tiedowns, and that they’re in good condition and properly rated. Tighten the load securely — but keep in mind that tighter is not always better.

Current Rules

DOT regulations use a formula based on the working load limit of your tiedowns. To secure a load, you need the working load limit of your straps, chains, wire rope or other devices to add up to half the weight of the load.

Wait a minute, you say — half the weight of the load? That’s because each tiedown is secured in two places. Visualize a 100-pound bagel suspended by a chain from the ceiling in two places. Each side of that chain is holding 50 pounds. If it were a single chain hanging from the ceiling, it would be holding the entire 100-pound bagel on one point, and would have to be twice as strong.

Buzzy France with the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance explains how it works: You take the manifested load weight and divide that in half — because you use two tiedown points, as we illustrated with the bagel. So if your load weighs 50,000 pounds, you need to figure the tiedown for 25,000 pounds. Say your straps are rated at 4,000 pounds. You would divide 25,000 by 4,000 to determine the number of straps you’re required to use. You come up with 6.25, then round up — so you need to use at least seven straps.

For instance, Frank DeBacco, former safety/training instructor at PGT Trucking, says his company uses 3/8-inch Grade 4 chains. The working load limit on those chains is 5,400 pounds. So if you’ve got the same 50,000-pound load as in the example above, you would divide 25,000 by 5,400 and get 4.629 — rounding up to five chains.

You’re also required to have one tiedown for every 10 feet of load. Some states have stricter requirements — for instance, California and Washington require a securing device every 4 feet of the load, says Umthun training supervisor Larry Peterson.

Companies also may have varying policies. PGT Trucking, for instance, requires one extra chain beyond the DOT number required.

Inspectors do the same calculations to determine if there are enough tiedowns for the length and weight of the load. Then they look at the condition of the securement system: Are there cracks, bent or broken links in the chains or hooks? Are the web straps torn or frayed? Are the stake pockets or other anchoring points in bad condition? Equipment that’s badly damaged won’t be counted. If you’re missing 25% or more of the required tiedowns, whether they were never there or whether they’re damaged, you’ll be cited and put out of service until you get it secured properly.

General Guidelines

Once you meet the DOT regulations, how you secure the load is pretty much up to you, unless the company you work for or the shipper has specific requirements. There are some specific federal guidelines for steel coils, which are one of the most problematic flatbed loads.

Some drivers prefer chains — some straps for the same load.

“We usually use chains on all steel loads and straps on everything else,” says Umthun’s Peterson. “We tell [drivers] not to use straps on steel, but sometimes we’ll put a strap over the tarp for extra securement and because it helps hold the tarp down.”

Jeff Seabolt, Robbinsville, NC, who has been hauling flatbed for 17 years, prefers straps. “They generally have higher load ratings and can be tensioned a lot more precisely,” he says. “With a chain it’s always one link too loose or one link too tight. The way the ratchets are designed on straps you’ve got much more precise control.”

Mark Miller, a driver for Roberson, is partial to chains for heavier loads. “If it’s got a lot of sharp edges, or something heavy, I’d rather use a chain, because you feel more secure,” he says. “[For] some things they want you to use a strap because they don’t want the chains to scratch it up.”

Fred Salley, Duncan, SC, pulled flatbeds and dropdecks for more than 13 years before moving on to work in safety and training. “If you take 20 experienced drivers to the same load, there would be 20 different ways the load would be treated, except for one thing,” he says. “The load would be well secured to the trailer and protected from the elements in each case.”

The main thing is to make sure the load is prevented from moving in any direction. You don’t want the load to end up in your sleeper, roll off the back of the trailer, or shift from side to side and possibly cause a rollover.

While the DOT regulations determine the minimum number of tiedowns, many drivers say they use more. In short, you can’t have too many tiedowns.

“More is better,” says owner-operator Steve Bell from Chillicothe, OH, who is leased to a small trucking company. “If one chain or strap is good, two is better. Be overly cautious. Take the attitude that if the load falls off, it might just be your own family it falls on.”

“The most common mistake would be to look at the load on the trailer and ask the question, ‘How few chains can I get by with on this load?’” says Salley. “I’d rather have five too many than one too few.”

Keep in mind that each load is different. “Probably the most important thing is to really use your head when it comes to dealing with a load,” says Seabolt. “It’s a lot easier with dry freight to just close the doors and forget about the load. Use your head as you load and as you tie down. Think about what the load might do in a hard turn or sudden stop and try to anticipate that. Rote repetition is not a good way to approach flatbed. Each load is an individual that requires individual attention.”

When Might Doesn’t Make Right

One of the most common mistakes drivers make when securing a load is believing that tighter is always better.

“This country seems to have a philosophy of might makes right,” says Larry Strawhorn, chief engineer with the American Trucking Assns. “So if tightening a chain with a 2-foot bar is good, they think a 4-foot bar must be really good. You can make something too tight.” Strawhorn is on a committee of government and private industry representatives working on new North American standard securement guidelines. “Quite often, when we’ve looked at what’s wrong, it’s the load is too tight,” he says.

How can too tight be a problem? Aside from damaging the load, you’re putting too much strain on your securement devices. Say, for instance, you’re securing a 1,000-pound coil with something that has a working load limit of 1,500 pounds. If you tighten it up to 1,500 pounds, then sudden braking or other movement, even bumps in the road, puts more load onto the chain or strap. So you’ve exceeded that working load limit — not just of the chain or strap, but of the chain binder, stake pocket or winch as well.

“Overtightening is probably one of the biggest mistakes that’s made,” says Rodney Reynolds with Columbus McKinnon’s chain division. “Chain actually has a memory to it, and I can tell you what the maximum load it’s seen out in the field.” In addition, he says it’s not uncommon to see failed chains that have been stressed past where they should have been.

You can overtighten straps, too. Some drivers use a cheater bar on the winches on the sides of the trailer just as they do tightening chain binders.

“You need to tighten it up so it’s not loose, but you don’t want it so tight that you’re bugging your eyeballs out when you’re pulling on the lever,” Strawhorn says.

Seabolt pays very close attention to the load as he tightens the straps. “I tighten the strap one notch at a time, and watch how the load reacts. If you make something so tight that you’re moving the load, it’s probably too tight.”

Protecting The Load

Not only do you have to make sure the load is not going to shift or fall off, but you also have to take care that the freight gets to its destination in good condition.

Use corner protectors to keep chains or straps from rubbing or cutting into the freight.

Tarps are used to protect loads from the weather. A tight, neat tarp is something of an art among flatbed haulers. Loose tarps can flap and damage the load as well as the tarp.

“Happiness is a tight tarp,” says Seabolt. “You can make a tiedown too tight, but it’s just about impossible to make a tarp too snug. As you go down the road you’ve got wind flow of 60 to 70 mph over this thing. The more it flops, the more likely it is to get holes. And you can suck moisture under the tarp that will cause a shipper to be upset on the other end.”

Today, most truckers use vinyl tarps, that are lighter, more water-resistant and more easily repaired than canvas ones. Seabolt carries one old canvas tarp that he uses between the load and the vinyl tarp if the freight has sharp edges that could damage the more expensive vinyl tarp.

Umthun drivers use a layer of waterproof paper between the steel and the tarp, Peterson says, to keep condensation from forming. “It doesn’t take much with steel to get rust on it,” he says. “Even humidity overnight can turn it.”

New Regulations On The Horizon

Representatives from government and industry in Canada and the United States have been working for several years to develop new, uniform load securement standards for North America.

The effort started out with a research project, conducted in Canada. According to ATA’s Strawhorn, two things are being developed as a result of that research — a recommended practice and a draft regulation for use in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. (To view the draft regulations, visit www.ab.org/ccmta/ccmta.asp on the Internet.)

It probably will be a year or two before we see the regulations implemented in this country. They haven’t even been addressed yet with a notice of proposed rulemaking. “The good news for this country is our existing regulations are really okay, according to the research,” Strawhorn says. Therefore, it’s not a big priority with the federal government. “It’s not the brightest item on the Office of Motor Carriers’ radar screen,” he says. The regulations will likely be effective in Canada first.

One of the main differences in the draft regulations is that they address specific commodities. The present regulations only cover steel coils with much detail. The new rules would give specific securement requirements for logs, dressed lumber, metal coils, paper rolls, concrete pipe, intermodal containers, vehicles, heavy equipment, crushed vehicles, roll-on/roll-off containers and even large boulders.

The other major change would require load limit labeling for all components of the securement system — not just chains and straps, but also hooks, load binders, fabric strapping, and the capacity of stake pockets, D-rings and other devices used to anchor the loads.

“If you use a Grade 4 binder, but have a Grade 7 chain, your securement system is only as good as the weakest part of that system,” Reynolds says. “Most people think of the primary component of the securement system being the strap or the chain, because that’s what he sees going over the load. But it’s only as good as that stake pocket. Some of this is addressed in this new regulation. All aspects of the securement system must be recognized, with a graded marking or working load limit being legibly marked on it.”

Whatever the load, and whichever regulations or company guidelines you’re working under, give each load your full attention. Many drivers we spoke with said being in a hurry was a good way to get hurt or have a load that’s not secured well.

“Step back and take a good long look at what you’ve done,” Bell says. “Could you have done it better? Put safety first. Haste makes waste — or worse.

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One of the most common mistakes drivers make when securing a load is believing that tighter is always better.

“This country seems to have a philosophy of might makes right,” says Larry Strawhorn, chief engineer with the American Trucking Assns. “So if tightening a chain with a 2-foot bar is good, they think a 4-foot bar must be really good. You can make something too tight.” Strawhorn is on a committee of government and private industry representatives working on new North American standard securement guidelines. “Quite often, when we’ve looked at what’s wrong, it’s the load is too tight,” he says.

How can too tight be a problem? Aside from damaging the load, you’re putting too much strain on your securement devices. Say, for instance, you’re securing a 1,000-pound coil with something that has a working load limit of 1,500 pounds. If you tighten it up to 1,500 pounds, then sudden braking or other movement, even bumps in the road, puts more load onto the chain or strap. So you’ve exceeded that working load limit — not just of the chain or strap, but of the chain binder, stake pocket or winch as well.

“Overtightening is probably one of the biggest mistakes that’s made,” says Rodney Reynolds with Columbus McKinnon’s chain division. “Chain actually has a memory to it, and I can tell you what the maximum load it’s seen out in the field.” In addition, he says it’s not uncommon to see failed chains that have been stressed past where they should have been.

You can overtighten straps, too. Some drivers use a cheater bar on the winches on the sides of the trailer just as they do tightening chain binders.

“You need to tighten it up so it’s not loose, but you don’t want it so tight that you’re bugging your eyeballs out when you’re pulling on the lever,” Strawhorn says.

Seabolt pays very close attention to the load as he tightens the straps. “I tighten the strap one notch at a time, and watch how the load reacts. If you make something so tight that you’re moving the load, it’s probably too tight.”

bth9461

Lots of good points. I actually have a cheater bar for my chain binders, but never use it. Felt that if I needed it, I might over tighten the chain and binders. I also wrap the binders with a bunggie cord, Helps keep them from opening up, do to vibration and bumps.

Brian