Hi All.
A number of times over the years I have worked with drivers at the same company, or seen drivers I know vaguely from other companies who have “lost” their loads over the side/back and I’m afraid it’s often even when the load has had been roped & sheeted, dogged and chained or strapped whether on flat coilers (which we mostly used) or curtainsiders. Sorry to have to say this, but in my experience it’s usually been down to driver error. Usually way too fast and/or aggressive on roundabouts, tight bends/corners or Junctions etc.
I’ve seen 25+ ton Steel Coil come flying out of a deep coil well that had no business moving at all whether strapped, chained or not 
I’ve seen sheet steel on or off pallets, galvanised sheets (for the now defunct mines), tin-plate all come flying off because drivers didn’t seem to understand or be concerned about inertia and mass and once something very heavy starts to move it’s usually beyond the point where you can stop it.
We used to back load “anything” that would fit legally on a 40ft flat triaxle coiler. All the usual suspects like bricks, paper, fert, plastics, ingots, aluminium slabs, steel slabs, concrete products, steel I-Beams, empty pallets/stillages (used to be car industry), arched steel pit props, sheeted and unsheeted timber of all sizes, scrap steel bales etc.
This is no doubt why VOSA etc have little choice but to bring in “extra” regulations/laws covering “load security”. It’s often a case of the few bad apples and sometimes “other causes?” 
causing enforced changes that everyone else then has to comply with who ordinarily just go about their driving career safely year after year.
I am not “the perfect” driver and certainly made a few mistakes over the years as most drivers with any balls and honesty will readily admit. I’m just so glad I never lost a load off the side by my own incompetence or lack of common sense when it came to load security etc. 
On the subject of rope and sheets securing a load, I remember only too well when I was green/young and first started Class 1 driving, I had to pick up my first ever load of corrugated, galvanised 1 ton per pack steel from one of the many steel product companies in the West Midlands. 24 ton, side by side down the deck on oily timbers as it was only banded, non palletised and very, very slippery…Gulp! Also, the company I worked for back then only supplied a few straps per driver (if you were lucky) so it was rope and sheet load security and a few straps or nothing! 
Oh, and the sheets were years old and most eyelets and ties were long gone lol 
. So I got it loaded, roped & sheeted as best I could and then had to decide where to put my three straps. I had 12 rows to cover as stated above so I split it up by strapping the third, sixth and ninth bundles leaving the last three as there is usually much less inertia the further you go down the trailer away from the headboard. 
And so here we go, Fired up the old ■■■■■■■ E290 SedAtki 401 (Sigh, great days, no speed limiters etc 
) and pointed myself south heading for Deep Navigation Mine in South Wales with a load of steel to help prevent the miners having a good many tons of rubble, earth and stone falling about their lug holes. Got down as far as Ross on Wye without incident taking it real easy and constantly in the mirrors checking the slippery buggers on the back. Passing Ross, third roundabout (bottom of hill), half way around really taking it steady as it’s not a very big or particularly wide roundabout, an old farmer in his ancient Landrover decides he can’t be bothered to wait and proceeds to pull out in front of me literally right under my windscreen . Remember, on this part of the roundabout, I’m at the point of highest inertia. It was brake quite hard or hit him, no other choice. I was fuming as you can imagine 
. I couldn’t see the nearside as I was still only half way around. After a bit of cursing, which the auto sensor won’t allow lol, I jammed her in gear and proceeded around. As she was starting to straighten out I was anxiously waiting and watching the nearside mirror . Sure enough, I saw something that every driver dreads. A 1 Ton pack of steel hanging, yes hanging! In the ripped sheets, and two of them each side of it partially on the the way over…Argggggggghhhhhh!! 
(Insert all the usual car and careless driver rants here).
Not too far from the roundabout is a large lay-by so I crawled down to it terrified of disturbing the packs even more. Out I get and off to inspect my “inherited” problem. I felt a bit sick when I walked round the front of the cab and saw the pack hanging in the sheet! After looking at it for a while and wondering how the hell I was going to get it back on, I (stupidly) got under this one TON pack and tried with all my strength to push it back on the trailer. Of course, at a ton dead weight, it was impossible to move it hardly at all and here was a reasonably thin, weakened, ripped, years past it’s sell by date canvas sheet holding it in place! The ropes around it had also sheared completely .
So do I agree that roping and sheeting helps to keep a load in place as well as dry? Darned right I do. I am the proof and even though the one shifted into the sheet, it still held it in place. Those sheets are a LOT stronger than you might think and the lighter, lower and more even the load, the better they are at securing it with good “in between” roping 
It’s a long story how I got it back on, so I’ll just say that not far away was a very small industrial estate and I asked a company in there if they would allow their forklift driver to lift it back on and push the other two back into place, which thankfully and very gratefully they did. (Can you imagine anyone doing that for you today?) 
.
I then proceeded as steadily as before, without further incident and tipped the load at Deep Navigation Mine, only later having to explain to the company the ripped sheet and exactly what had caused it, only to be blamed for it anyway 
…Such is a drivers life sometimes lol.
How about this for “logic?” When things were quiet, we would pop into Longbridge, Cowley, Jags at Coventry etc for empty steel cage pallets of various sizes (the slot into each other type). These were forklifted on two to four high depending on their size. If we were in there with a flat (almost always), then the pallets were simply roped across each double and crossed at the back. If however you were in there with a curtainsider virtually nobody ever secured them at all! You just closed the curtains on them and off you went! I know they were quite light and the curtains would “probably” hold them in most cases and I must admit I never once recall a SINGLE pallet ever moving. So why then should they move on a flat without being roped? Well, I think the answer might be that if you were being a careful and cautious driver the very large heavier one’s probably wouldn’t, yet neither you, the Public, or especially the Police would usually view this as acceptable as one can “see” that the load is not secured in any way. In fact, I remember “some” drivers trying to tell me, nah mate, no need to rope em’ all, just cross the back and they won’t go anywhere! They soon changed their minds though when the Traffic Police started booking them for having an “unrestrained” load!!
I both agree and disagree with some comments about load security, or the lack of it on this thread and I’m not going to be a hypocrite and say I “always” did this that or the other. Like most drivers I just had to use my best judgement at the time for whatever load I was carrying that day and do all I could to make sure it stayed safely in place to it’s final destination.
Do I agree with the new regulations and laws on load security etc? Not necessarily all of them no. But then, it really doesn’t matter if the laws are forced on the Drivers/haulage industry by incompetent drivers, car drivers being careless, (insert any other valid reason to you here), you have to comply with the rules whether you like it or not. And if the rules state that 1 ton bags of Fert (or whatever) have to be secured individually by ropes, net, sheet etc and not just a cross on the back two, then this is what you will all eventually have to do to keep your licence/job etc.
At the end of the day, it beats having to explain to your employer (and possible future one’s) why that 1 ton bag ended up on the roadside fertilizing the daffodils instead of fertilizing farmer Giles’s bloody fields 
Disclaimer: This is just my own opinion/view and is neither intended to offend, disagree/agree nor insult anyone whatsoever. Neither is it advice or suggestion or anything else. All I know is that after that first “incident” in my very early years as a driver that, that 1 ton pack of steel “could” very easily have landed on a car or a bike or a person and NO driver that’s conscious and careful ever wants to be responsible in any way for the serious injury or death of another person. I know that I’m glad I never was!
Oh, and P.S. Stripping down a Tilt so that it’s quite heavy, not very pliable cover can be used as a “sheet” on U.K. General Haulage? Hmm, most unusual old boy lol. But each to their own I guess
Oops, that post wasn’t meant to be that long. I’m so sorry I got carried away reliving it all
Andy…
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