My preference is the now all but banned, overcentre dog. They were quicker to apply and remove, they also tighten the chains better. I often found the ratcheting type twist the chain, rather than take up the last bit of tention.
The overcentre type is not dangerous, when used properly and with common sense.
Another advantage being that it keeps idiots, who should stick to vans, away from loads with a propensity to fall off, when not properly secured, away from potential danger.
Many things are not dangerous if used correctly, but far too often are used incorrectly. And common sense (can we agree?) is not as common as we would hope? 
If I was asked to use a chain dog, I would, but I still say the other sort are less likely to give rise to a Darwin Award.
Good training is the key to almost everything. When I started there wasnât much formal training, but maybe just by luck, I was shown how to do stuff by a good bunch of workmates. It was that, informal training that helped me avoid become a statistic.
I do moan about some âteach how to suck eggsâ training to-day, but it is better to have it than not in most cases. It can do good, and can do no harm.
My thoughts exactly, though I didnât know the sylvesters were âall but bannedâ anywhere. Nor did I know about the drawbacks of the other kind, never having used them.
On the US site Iâm pretty sure many use the older type because there was much mirth over a picture of an idiot doing it all the wrong way at great threat to life and limb. Another picture Iâll have to dig out. 
Banned on all mine sites and larger companies, all of which have woke health and safety regimes, to cover their arses, nothing to do with real safety.
A friend of mine used to regularly take tyres, 10â~12â diameter to mine sites. He would cross chain each stack, tensioning the chains with overcentre dogs. He was not allowed on site with the old dogs. A not so quiet, robust tĂȘt-Ă -tĂȘte ensued, ending in my mate generously offering to return the tyres to the source of origin, gratis.
An amicable arrangement was come to, whereby he could use his old dogs, as far as the mine gate, continuing the last few kilometres without dogs, of any description.
Well, well, well, somebody on the other side has been reading my posts. This is Diesel Daveâs (not ours, theirs) latest load and guess what he has a cross on the front and not only that, but chains. Not obvious at first I was chuntering to myself that âI would have put a rolled up sheet over the front and crossed it with ropes or strapsâ. Then I looked closer. 
I canât determine what the load is, it looks like folded thin metal. That being the case, I would have placed a sheet of plywood as a temporary headboard, secured with straps crossing the front. I would also be choking the freight.
That has the appearance of folded sheet steel purlins or whatever, but since he has used chains I assume that they are actually summat more solid than that. Chains dogged down tight would damage anything light, and if left slack are useless.
Is that a section or extrusion viewed from the end or labels on each piece?
Given the number of bearers I would guess it is heavy and so is pretty solid stuff.
Nice to see that the bearers are all in a nice vertical line so reducing bending in the load, avoiding distortion and springing.
So long as the straps are protected from sharp edges, that isnât too bad at all, but I do agree @star_down_under that a sheet of heavy ply, or a couple of pallets on end would be a good idea too.
I think he said it was building material for Amazon, make of that what you will, I was only impressed that a US driver finally discovered that things can move forward when everything else suddenly stops.
Even putting a half unrolled sheet down the front strapped topânâbottom would do some good.
Do current US trucks have brakes on all axles? Or do they not bother with brakes on the front as they once did? Maybe it needs a mile to stop anyway!
I did get a bit pee-ed off when asked to sheet timber that had been in open storage. The argument was that it protected the timber from the road muck thrown up as spray, not from the clean rain that fell from the sky.
I can see the sense in that, but stillâŠwater-proof sheets on top of wet goods!
When I did timber out of Ipswich and Tilbury I was asked to sheet as the rain drove into the end grain as I was travelling.
Re Spardoâs pic of the yank with the timber, shirley the sleeper box will cushion the impact in the event of an emergency stop 
Excellent!
An air bag for the load.
I wish youâd stop calling me Shirley,the nameâs Suzanna. 
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Iâve also seen ratchet type, in use in the USA, too.
Our local carnival used to take nearly two hours to pass, sixty years ago. This year it lasted about 90 seconds. People asked, âWhy?â So I got my smart phone and showed them. A couple of dozen Brownies & Guides on a flatbed trailer or a rigid would stay on quite happily, even though the trucks were moving:
Brownies were trained by the SAS not to be scared of beetles and stuff.
Not like today. It now takes highly trained man in full battle gear, harnessed to the deck to even be allowed on a stationary flatbed truck. And we wonder why the papers tell us teenagers are cowering in their bedrooms.
Iâll just get my tin hat and sneak out via the snugâŠ
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If they are cowering, itâs partly due to their parentsâ conditioning and partly due to their social conditioning. You cannot get experience of the world without exposure.
My point entirely!
Thank god I was a kid in the '50s and '60s, when we could go responsibly feral from breakfast time to teatime and learn how the world worked.
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