Saaamon:
Whats stopping the load from going sideways?
Before replying folks remember a load can fall off the side or come through the curtains just by taking evasive action to simply avoid a child running into the road or hitting a bump in the road whilst negotiating a long sweeping bend.
Would you all be happy taking 26pallets on a flat bed with two crossed straps on the rear?
The UK has an awful approach to load security, no side boards, no anchor points on the bed and slip mats, wtf are them… 99% of companies dont bother shrink wrapping corner protectors in so even if you use your own it only holds the [zb] in the middle of the pallet. Internal straps are joke aswell, fine for holding light stuff but nothing else.
What is stopping the load going sideways is tensile shrink or thermal wrap, gravity and approved curtain tensioners.
Another advantage of tensile pvc wrapping is hygiene and preventing pilfering / natural wastage
In my reply I was thinking more about plastic bottles (which we used to carry) rather than cans which are much more stable. Bottles are a real ■■■■■ even when they are triple wrapped and on a curtainsider they really do need to be restrained or they wobble all over the place.
I watched a driver in our yard secure a single tall pallet of bottles on his four wheeler in the middle of the bed with one strap over the top. When I suggested that it wasn’t good enough he said “It’s only going down the road.” He got as far as the gate where he made a sharp turn and the pallet collapsed in the middle. He then complained because no one would help him re-stack it on to two pallets - had he asked in the first place two or three of us would have helped.
The point about the original shipper’s responsibility is a good one. On the pallet system work we were collecting from many infrequent shippers who had no idea - one spiral of cling film up the load with none attaching it to the pallet itself was quite common. Most of us would refuse such cargo but it often caused arguments.
Took out a full load of Coke just like that from LG in Milton Keynes to Oxford. As I was driving down by the MINI plant, some other plant pulled out in front of me, necessitating emergency braking. The load was strapped with two straps, crossed behind each set of four pallets, (they were loaded two by two from the side).
Now because the coke didn’t fill the pallet, and because there was no shrink wrap around the packs of coke, the whole ■■■■■■■ lot moved forwards. Crushed the bottom two packs on each pallet and the entire load had to be skipped.
I would strap it like this.
One strap down the side of each pallet to help prevent sideways movement.
One empty pallet, stood on its end, between each pallet of stock.
One cross strap at the back to prevent it all going out the back doors.
One trip across the weighbridge to make sure all is good.
If the boss has any problems with that, I will kindly remind them that I am the driver, and I need to be satisfied the load will not move in transit. He is of course within his rights to assign me a different load.
ETA: Dont know about other beer producers, but Carlsburg glue their packs together to make one solid, ton a pallet load. It wont protect the load in a high speed head on, but it works fine for cornering and medium speed avoidance.
Took out a full load of Coke just like that from LG in Milton Keynes to Oxford. As I was driving down by the MINI plant, some other plant pulled out in front of me, necessitating emergency braking. The load was strapped with two straps, crossed behind each set of four pallets, (they were loaded two by two from the side).
Now because the coke didn’t fill the pallet, and because there was no shrink wrap around the packs of coke, the whole [zb] lot moved forwards. Crushed the bottom two packs on each pallet and the entire load had to be skipped.
I would strap it like this.
One strap down the side of each pallet to help prevent sideways movement.
One empty pallet, stood on its end, between each pallet of stock.
One cross strap at the back to prevent it all going out the back doors.
One trip across the weighbridge to make sure all is good.
If the boss has any problems with that, I will kindly remind them that I am the driver, and I need to be satisfied the load will not move in transit. He is of course within his rights to assign me a different load.
ETA: Dont know about other beer producers, but Carlsburg glue their packs together to make one solid, ton a pallet load. It wont protect the load in a high speed head on, but it works fine for cornering and medium speed avoidance.
Probably cheaper to skip some stock once in a while than that faff.
Also add in that the more strapping and lifting of empty pallets you do the more risk of personal injury and putting pallets on top or inbetween often means nails damage the goods.
I really don’t think there is any big issue with palletised goods load security representing an actual safety risk. If there is a shed load it’s usually a rollover or near rollover and the load can still go through the side on a box van if it rolls.
If a pallet is badly stacked or wrapped it usually can’t be sorted with a ratchet strap which will be slack by the time you get to the destination anyway.
Welshman:
All that strapping and pallet palaver would be fun when you go to an Rdc with a back door tip!
I quite agree, but its not the RDC who’s responsible for the vehicle and load on the highway yet it’s because of the RDCs dictating to the hauliers how loads are transported we are in such a mess when it comes to load security.
I’ve always liked the idea of using empty pallets as dunnage with spansets over each loaded pallet. Unfortunately, empty pallets cannot be found floating around loading bays. They cost money, whether in rental charges or to purchase. It would be fantastic if every loading point had a supply of free pallets, extra spansets, timbers in various sizes, etc. but it’s never going to happen. As usual, it’s down to the driver to make the best of a bad job, then carry the can when something inevitably goes ■■■■ up.
robinhood_1984:
Its not the drivers fault what he’s given to work with, but it becomes his fault the second he rolls a wheel on to a public road in the eyes of the law. As usual for the UK, this whole thing was introduced arse about face.
This…
BuzzardBoy:
jessicas dad:
Saamon. If either off those loads were going sidewards you would be so far in the [zb] the last thing on your mind would be the load.
This just about sums it up. Drive correctly and strapping these sorts of loads isn’t really nessercary.
But you cant always predict what other people are going to do. I certainly wouldnt strap the load in question but i would arrange the side boards so that they run up to the top of the pallet and put a load lock at the rear and im sure every driver would do the same if they had the right equipment.
Retired Old ■■■■:
I’ve always liked the idea of using empty pallets as dunnage with spansets over each loaded pallet. Unfortunately, empty pallets cannot be found floating around loading bays. They cost money, whether in rental charges or to purchase. It would be fantastic if every loading point had a supply of free pallets, extra spansets, timbers in various sizes, etc. but it’s never going to happen. As usual, it’s down to the driver to make the best of a bad job, then carry the can when something inevitably goes ■■■■ up.
Saaamon:
The UK has an awful approach to load security, no side boards, no anchor points on the bed and slip mats, wtf are them… 99% of companies dont bother shrink wrapping corner protectors in so even if you use your own it only holds the [zb] in the middle of the pallet. Internal straps are joke aswell, fine for holding light stuff but nothing else.
I totally agree. It seems to me that the UK has proceeded forth with implementing German style load securement rules despite the fact that our entire transport industry and of course the manufacturing industry of which we serve, is totally incapable of running that way as nothing is built or set up for it.
For years now, all European trailers have had wooden/alumunium side boards with safely hold in light loads and they have all sorts of anchor points on the deck and practically all new Euro trailers now have hundreds of strapping points down the side of the trailer so that loads can be strapped even when the pallet comes right to the edge or even overlaps. All the time while this has been developing and exisiting in Europe, we here in Britain have been pratting about with trailers that have a few half arsed internal straps on a weak roof rail that has the load bearing integrity of a blade of grass and then having probably one side post either side and no boards, and maybe, if we’re lucky, 4 or 5 strap in points down the side of the trailer. Its not really good enough is it, not if we’re now to run like the Germans, but with our own substandard equipment that doesn’t have anything like the capability to do so.
As for manufacturers, they’re about as much good as the before mentioned trailers. They’re not set up for, and seemingly have very little desire to make and package their goods for safe travel. Everything is done as cheaply as possible and then we get blamed when it either falls over, or gets damaged when we strap their poxy cardboard packaging to prevent it from falling over. Very little seems to be taken seriously by UK shippers though, 99.9% of the time you have to write out your own CMR because they’ve either never heared of them or dont have them etc, despite the fact they’ve been sending loads to Europe for every bit as long as the equivilent German/French/Dutch etc companies have been sending theirs here, always with a proper shipper issued computer printed CMR. Industry in the UK just doesn’t care and the buck is always passed down the line to the weakest link, in this case, us.
I just love that line about “the integrity of a blade of grass”.
That just about sums up most of the UK haulage industry. Basically they couldn’t give a flying F about load security. The short term answer is (maybe)a stack of pallets up the front to get the load evenly distributed, only 20/22 pallets to allow for weight and pallets on top, in the middle and in between if necessary.
All this “it’s never moved in the past” is not helping matters.
There is a glimmer of hope on the horizon, but only a few companies will go for these systems because they are not really practicable solutions for general haulage use.
The real answer lies in the packaging, but that doesn’t allow the multi-million pound companies to shift the buck onto someone else. One can just imagine Mr coca cola choking on his big fat cigar when told the resultant cost of delivery when packaged for safe transit.
Until the likes of Coca cola are told “that’s not going anywhere like that”, nothing is going to change.
when i was a stobs sherburn the amount of otif failures due to load movement was unbelievable… especially as said on 2/3litres bottles,
i feel that most would have not happened if the proper trailers were used…
its funny how we could receive stuff from the rest of Europe in excellent condition but couldn’t get the product to normanton in the same condition. i,m not blaming any driver but the use of trailer…
dle1uk:
when i was a stobs sherburn the amount of otif failures due to load movement was unbelievable… especially as said on 2/3litres bottles,
i feel that most would have not happened if the proper trailers were used…
its funny how we could receive stuff from the rest of Europe in excellent condition but couldn’t get the product to normanton in the same condition. i,m not blaming any driver but the use of trailer…
Thats just it. When all most British firms use are the most basic of curtainsiders with one side post each side and no retaining boards etc its no wonder things move, even light stuff that doesn’t need strapping, but just holding in place neatly.
The problem is that unless all British firms engaged in general haulage replace their entire trailer stock to something that equals a good modern Euroliner then this will continue. Also another thing worth considering is that if that were to happen, getting tipped would take far longer for each trailer as there would be possibly up to 60 wooden/aluminium boards to remove and put back and all sorts of strapping on the now accessable strapping points that dont exist on UK trailers in general. Whenever I’ve been doing a side tip at an RDC for example and had to mess around with all this, it takes me twice or probably even three times as long as it does the equivilent British truck with a domestic trailer who just rolls up, slides his curtain open and tips. If, and its a very big if, we did somehow manage to all receive the right equipment for the job, there is going to have to be massive expansion to the goods receiving areas of large RDC’s as the turnover of trucks is going to me much slower. Either that or waiting times at these places would just get far worse than they already are, which is more the more likely outcome. Not that it matters as I think British firms will just keep dragging their heels and keep on using obsolete trailers for years to come and drivers will carry on taking this daily risk to their livelyhood because they have no realistic alternative.
this picture shor who headboard gone,damaged.this can be for different reason.every day thousands lorry moving soft drink,and no problem.basicly any sparkling drink in plastic bottle not danger .much ,much more danger stll drink in plastic botlle.becouse all pallets with still drink very soft.but pallets with beers or Cola cans very very stabil.if drivers normal drive,and if must drive by normal road.
Are we all in the wrong for not following the Department for Transport code of practice.
Is this why the DCPC being introduced so we are all singing from the same song sheet perhaps?
