Retired Old ■■■■:
Never once, in fifty years in the industry, has anyone replied, “What do you think is wrong?” or “How do you think we can improve the way we’re doing it?”
But what makes you better qualified than me to say what’s the best way to secure my load.
Ross.
Only my fifty years of hard-earned experience, mate.
Plus the ten years or so learning the “proper” way to do things from the age of about seven.
Plus the RTITB courses on Load Safety & Security.
Plus all those hours at night school learning about Static & Dynamic Forces.
Plus the hours spent poring over piles of books and pamphlets that were churned out by the (then) Ministry of Transport at Marsham Street- no computers in those days.
Plus all the stuff issued by the Road Haulage Association.
But, after all’s said and done, I know nothing- I’m just a driver.
But I have to agree with you, Ross, I’m no better qualified than you to say what’s the best way to secure YOUR load. It’s always down to the driver. That way, others have someone to blame when it all goes pear-shaped.
All the best.
it’ll be a ■■■■■■ if he’s done all that but with only 51 years hard earned experience
Aye, lad, all that and still only came out it with arthritus, a bad back and a basic state pension!
But am I bitter?
You guess
Nowadays I have to supplement my meagre income by calling myself a Road Transport Consultant and running lectures for seventy quid an hour. Should have thought of it years ago!
Bking:
Because there is 26 tons going down(gravity) held up by the base of the trailer.The imposed load on the staps in a straight line is zero.When you go round a corner load is put on the straps and its down to the vehicles angular momentum which is transferred to the load how much force is applied to the straps.
The momentum first has to beat the friction holding the pallets together,eg trailer bed,load rail,shrink wrap before it can start to shift the load sideways.If the pallets are pushed up tight this acts as one Block of 26 tons so a lot of force has to be applied to move 26000 kg but if there are gaps in the load then you have 26 units of 1000 kg trying to move which takes far less energy to move sideways and your up the creek first hard corner you come to.
If you only have 2 straps they should be across the back of the load to keep the pallets tight and keep them all together as one unit load.Cos if you got enough angular momentum to put 26 thousand kilos through the side of a curtain you should have been riding a bloody motorbike not driving a truck.
That may be okay if your carrying burger buns, try it with laminate boards after machining, or wire cable trays, radiators or any of a 101 things. The first thing to go isn’t the pallet sliding on the bed, it’s the load breaking free of it’s banding/shrink wrap etc. I’ve never lost a load in a curtainsider, I’ve had them move a little , 2 straps across the back is for those wanting to work at Jim Henson Haulage.
Never drunk laminate board is it refreshing.The question was about 26 tonnes of pop not 101 things.Use a bit of common eh!
Retired Old ■■■■:
But I have to agree with you, Ross, I’m no better qualified than you to say what’s the best way to secure YOUR load. It’s always down to the driver.
This has been my point all along, I’ve never been supporting the securing of 27 tons of 17mm sheet steel with two oily black straps with rusty old ratchet tensioners. My argument is wth the blokes who’ve been doing the job for 5 or 6 years and have been on a course run by a bloke who’s been to university and also been on a course on to teach drivers how to secure a load!!! The irony being that the university educated dude hasn’t ever seen a load, whether secured by a ratchet strap or chains with ratchet bottle tensioners.
Retired Old ■■■■:
Now if you could just have a word with Ross…
Have all the words you like my friends, I’ve also been ‘at the job’ for many years and also take safety very seriously, the difference between myself and some of the contributors on this thread is that I believe my experience & skill from working both as a ‘steering wheel attendant’, fitter & transport manager.
Clearly, as a starting point for drivers with no experience these guidelines are really important, but such a load of tosh is being written on here by drivers with very limited experience of the real world and who belive that ‘the book’ is always right. Not only that, some of them are really stupid enough to believe that if they follow the guidelines and the load falls off the trailer that they’re in the clean!!! Deluded!!!
Bking:
Because there is 26 tons going down(gravity) held up by the base of the trailer.The imposed load on the staps in a straight line is zero.When you go round a corner load is put on the straps and its down to the vehicles angular momentum which is transferred to the load how much force is applied to the straps.
The momentum first has to beat the friction holding the pallets together,eg trailer bed,load rail,shrink wrap before it can start to shift the load sideways.If the pallets are pushed up tight this acts as one Block of 26 tons so a lot of force has to be applied to move 26000 kg but if there are gaps in the load then you have 26 units of 1000 kg trying to move which takes far less energy to move sideways and your up the creek first hard corner you come to.
If you only have 2 straps they should be across the back of the load to keep the pallets tight and keep them all together as one unit load.Cos if you got enough angular momentum to put 26 thousand kilos through the side of a curtain you should have been riding a bloody motorbike not driving a truck.
That may be okay if your carrying burger buns, try it with laminate boards after machining, or wire cable trays, radiators or any of a 101 things. The first thing to go isn’t the pallet sliding on the bed, it’s the load breaking free of it’s banding/shrink wrap etc. I’ve never lost a load in a curtainsider, I’ve had them move a little , 2 straps across the back is for those wanting to work at Jim Henson Haulage.
Never drunk laminate board is it refreshing.The question was about 26 tonnes of pop not 101 things.Use a bit of common eh!
Wind yer neck in sunshine, the original question was:
how can two internal straps restrain 26tons eg a normal curtain slider with 26 pallets of pop?.
Of those 101 things pop is one of them, the only direction I’ve not seen them go is forwards & backwards, internals will hold em to a certain extent, and as long as they’re wrapped properly on the pallet (cardboard layers and a cardboard wrap inside the pallet wrap) the only way to secure em properly is with webbing or the superwide straps. As for 2 in a dundee cross at the back .
Bking:
Because there is 26 tons going down(gravity) held up by the base of the trailer.The imposed load on the staps in a straight line is zero.When you go round a corner load is put on the straps and its down to the vehicles angular momentum which is transferred to the load how much force is applied to the straps.
The momentum first has to beat the friction holding the pallets together,eg trailer bed,load rail,shrink wrap before it can start to shift the load sideways.If the pallets are pushed up tight this acts as one Block of 26 tons so a lot of force has to be applied to move 26000 kg but if there are gaps in the load then you have 26 units of 1000 kg trying to move which takes far less energy to move sideways and your up the creek first hard corner you come to.
If you only have 2 straps they should be across the back of the load to keep the pallets tight and keep them all together as one unit load.Cos if you got enough angular momentum to put 26 thousand kilos through the side of a curtain you should have been riding a bloody motorbike not driving a truck.
That may be okay if your carrying burger buns, try it with laminate boards after machining, or wire cable trays, radiators or any of a 101 things. The first thing to go isn’t the pallet sliding on the bed, it’s the load breaking free of it’s banding/shrink wrap etc. I’ve never lost a load in a curtainsider, I’ve had them move a little , 2 straps across the back is for those wanting to work at Jim Henson Haulage.
Never drunk laminate board is it refreshing.The question was about 26 tonnes of pop not 101 things.Use a bit of common eh!
Wind yer neck in sunshine, the original question was:
how can two internal straps restrain 26tons eg a normal curtain slider with 26 pallets of pop?.
Of those 101 things pop is one of them, the only direction I’ve not seen them go is forwards & backwards, internals will hold em to a certain extent, and as long as they’re wrapped properly on the pallet (cardboard layers and a cardboard wrap inside the pallet wrap) the only way to secure em properly is with webbing or the superwide straps. As for 2 in a dundee cross at the back .
Oh I bow to your superior knowledge oh great one .Now can I get back to unloading this load of 101 things that have fallen off my trailer due to my total stupidity in believing in the laws of physics.I wonderd
why I always got to deliveries with an empty trailer you have enlightened me thankyou
DonutUK:
When i used to load out of Coca-Cola, Edmonton, for MJD, pallets of bottled pop, we used to cross the rear 2 internal straps…never once had a problem.
same at stobarts, city trucks and a few others over the last twenty years two crossed straps, through the middle of each pallet and out the back doors! never moved simples!
Because you’ve learnt the phrase angular momentum hardly qualifies you to preach the laws of physics.
Like I said wind yer neck in.
BTW angular momentum is already in play on the load and the vehicle as soon as the vehicle rotates around an axis, there is no transference of momentum to the load from the vehicle only differing vectors.
Of course all loads need securing but why doesn’t anyone run the dropside trailers that every country in europe seems to use for every load imaginable!, you know the ones the sides are about four foot high. At least the sides offer some decent mechanical strength.
dazteahan:
Of course all loads need securing but why doesn’t anyone run the dropside trailers that every country in europe seems to use for every load imaginable!, you know the ones the sides are about four foot high. At least the sides offer some decent mechanical strength.
not practical in the uk, far too many loads need to stick out a bit. and it’s far too much like hard work for so many british drivers.
Do I sense a bit of TENSION on this entertaining thread
From my experience 2 infernal straps on a loose ring fastened to a roof pole is going to do nothing for load security. However a pair of crossed spansets which is pulling the whole 26 pallets forward towards the bulkhead will prevent them shuffling back which they can do, it will also prevent the driver been squashed by 440 loose cans of coke when he opens the rear door. I admit that 2 crossed spansets is going to do nothing to hold radiators, wire trays or 101 other things.
I too have also bought & read many missives from Marsham Street. PDF is so much easier and whatever theory advice they come up with, the practicalities of doing it to the letter are often difficult. This also affects the missives from Lackenby, Scunthorpe and Delhi.
It is easy to say that a coil must be prevented from moving by using a strap and placing the strap just so; only to find out that the coil was positioned in a different place, was slightly larger / smaller and the crossmembers on a Don Bur trailer are not the same as a Montracon. At the gates of Lackenby the onus is on the driver whether to proceed, not a security jerk who has only got 3 years until retirement. Just because it shows a photograph of a blue strap holding a shiny coil to a yellow trailer, does not mean the bloke with green straps and a red trailer is any less or more dangerous.
The Driver is king when it comes to load security, the gateman, health and safety officer, retired policeman and office clerk are simply repeating a company mantra which was proven by the same qualification.
741 days, 21 hours 7 minutes since our last lost time accident, but by f we have had some near misses
We have done it like this for 40 years and only ever had one broken fingernail on site. Instead of every factory having signs at the gate, maybe the lorry driver should have a sign.
The driver of this vehicle has driven 3.5 million miles and has never had a blameworthy accident and was only late for a delivery once.
I would tend to agree about the driver being king. The problem is steadily getting worse because of the decreasing number of drivers who were trained the old-fashioned way, i.e. by being taught by their older workmates/family. We are rapidly descending into a situation where the previous generation of drivers never received the same amount of on-the-job training that our generation did and, through no-one’s fault, this situation can only get worse as time goes on.
Of course, the genuinly reputable companies will be hiring so-called “consultants” such as myself and a good many other retired Road Transport Professionals to teach their eager employees how the job should be done. This will, naturally, involve the transfer of substantial sums of money into my Swiss bank account, where it will gather sufficient interest to enable me to live out the remainder of my days in a style to which I should like to become accustomed.
Until this brilliant idea gets taken up by the movers & shakers of the industry, I would suggest that any driver with, say, less than five years experience could do worse than attempt to cover himself by doing things the “official” way.
P.S. Will someone tell Mr Stobart that I’ve already pencilled his company in for June and July of this year. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were one or two other contributors on this site who would care to join me in this money-spinning enterprise!
chester:
Section 11 pallets
Section 16 curtain siders
If anyone is not sure about how to secure a load, this should be their “bible”. It’s all very well cutting corners, but if everybody followed these rules a lot fewer lorry drivers would be found guilty of carrying an unsafe load. webarchive.nationalarchives.gov. … hicles.pdf
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?
Have I read this wrong, or are they suggesting you should lay open sacks down so that all the crap inside runs out
Sacks
7.11 Sealed sacks should be laid on their sides with alternate layers in opposite directions. In any
event no more than two successive layers should be in the same direction. The load should
be of uniform height when possible. There must be at least one cross lashing for each sack
length. Loads of sacks should be sheeted if possible.
7.12 Open sacks, for example those used for coal delivery, should be loaded and secured in a
similar way with cross lashings for each layer. The total load should also be sheeted to prevent
loose materials being lost from the vehicle.
Thankyou, my boy!
And when was the last time you saw a coal delivery lorry with a sheeted load?
Or straps/ropes?
The industry standard seems to be just a 25kg weight on top of a pile of empty sacks.
Is it just me…?
We have done it like this for 40 years and only ever had one broken fingernail on site. Instead of every factory having signs at the gate, maybe the lorry driver should have a sign.
not a knock at anyone, but a spot i used to work on when gate security, twice we had drivers pulling out of site with the rear doors open on the trailer, 1 lost 2 pallets of bottled soap, hell of a mess, slippy as hell and then they tried to wash it away think the whole street had a bubble bath…
Retired Old ■■■■:
Thankyou, my boy!
And when was the last time you saw a coal delivery lorry with a sheeted load?
Or straps/ropes?
The industry standard seems to be just a 25kg weight on top of a pile of empty sacks.
Is it just me…?
More to the point is ‘when was the last time I saw a coal delivery lorry’ or trolleys as we used to call 'em down sarf. Now we live in Oz, we don’t even have coal, even though they dig sqillions of tons of it out of the ground every year.
I’m sure I wouldn’t last 5 minutes if I went back driving over there. What with dcpc, dft,rtitb, f.a.r.t, b.u.m, a.r.s.e, and all the jobsworths with w.h.&s, I’d end up on a bleeding murder charge. Lorry drivers haven’t always been treated like idiotic scum of the earth and I couldn’t handle that.
peterm:
I’m sure I wouldn’t last 5 minutes if I went back driving over there. What with dcpc, dft,rtitb, f.a.r.t, b.u.m, a.r.s.e, and all the jobsworths with w.h.&s, I’d end up on a bleeding murder charge. Lorry drivers haven’t always been treated like idiotic scum of the earth and I couldn’t handle that.
I agree totally with what you wrote, the big problem is that these days there are a lot of total idiots behind the wheels of trucks, it’s becoming the day of the ‘steering wheel attendant’. Companies like Stobarts are happy to recruit young guys with new licences and train them how to do the job the Stobart way, old guys like me wouldn’t be too welcome as we’ve been doing the job too long and have our own idea’s.
They don’t just train their drivers, they indoctrinate them into believing that their way is the only way and the weaker minded drivers actually end up believing that they’ll be risking their lives if they go to work without their hi-viz & hard hat, real life saving equipment!!!
, 2 straps across the back is for those wanting to work at Jim Henson Haulage.
simples! 
