Silver_Surfer:
See, this thread is an example of lads not knowing what to strap so just strapping everything even if it’s not needed.
That load is as safe as houses. A lot of stuff going over is down to the muppet behind the wheel taking the rounders too fast.
I’ve said it before, you’ll have to strap your johnson to your leg soon just to get in the cab.
I appreciate as someone else said recently that it’s a catch all approach by vosa just so that overkill might seep through to the imbeciles who don’t strap the stuff that needs strapping.
Spot on SS.
I use to take fertilizer in 1 ton bags from either Immingham or Ince to Penzance, 3 times a week and only ever roped a cross on the back 2 bags and never had a bag move no matter how hard you cornered, the trailer’s going over before a bag comes off.
And when they loaded those bags onto the deck, they would drop them from a ft to 18" so they land flat and square.
The thread name is Safe load ? Not “what would vosa say ?”
You can tell straight away who the old hands are and who the know-it-all ‘born expert’ pups are on this thread. There’s nothing wrong with the security of that load but the born experts would be straight on the phone to the cops/vosa about it. Sign of the times.
Absolutely nothing wrong with this load. Been doing meself like this, that load will NOT shift.
Too many numpties driving wagons today being brainwashed into strapping this that and everything!
Sometimes the phrase - ‘you can’t argue with stupid’ is just not enough.
No matter crack on guys, do it your way and I will do it mine.
I do wonder if theres a few folks one here whose bottoms are jealous of the poop that comes out their keyboard fingers.
The load as we all know is safe as houses (in the hands of the average driver in normal conditions)and it would take a real numpty to lose any of this. This may come as a shock to some but the reason we secure loads above and beyond what is required is for that ‘abnormal condition’ we don’t expect.
Silver Surfers 20 or 30+ years experience, that’s who. What are you bringing to the table?
DfT Code Of Practice: Safety of loads on vehicles. 3rd Edition, section 7.11 (page 44). Copy available in your Transport Office with your TM, copy on the TCs desk, and a copy with VOSA. The original was written (with the use of various research organisations including TRRL in the early 70s)
You can argue the point, but if the load moves it’s £300 to the VOSA Christmas fund…they refer to us as “customers”…I like to be the non-paying kind of customer. But that’s my choice so I’d be chucking a few straps over it, keeps me happy, keeps VOSA happy, keeps my boss happy and keeps my bank manager happy…simples
truckyboy:
how do you know every bag has 800kg in it ?
I don’t. Hence the reason I used the word ‘about’ in my post.
B&Q bags are 750kg.
In a previous job I moved plenty of loads like this in a curtainsider. Sometimes double stacked pallets of the smaller bags and sometimes double stacked bulk bags. Never had anything move. As has been said previously they would only move if it rolled over lol
truckyboy:
how do you know every bag has 800kg in it ?
I don’t. Hence the reason I used the word ‘about’ in my post.
B&Q bags are 750kg.
In a previous job I moved plenty of loads like this in a curtainsider. Sometimes double stacked pallets of the smaller bags and sometimes double stacked bulk bags. Never had anything move. As has been said previously they would only move if it rolled over lol
Nah…they can go sideways. I’ve had a load of seed move (not slip as I secured the bags) after 2 muppets in skateboards decided to have a altercation right on my front door. I brought her nicely to stop whilst these 2 decided to swap paint and plastic as best as they can, but the bags shifted enough to put buldges in the curtains. Not big ones but enough to be noticed. Thankfully I wasn’t that far from the yard…
Silver Surfers 20 or 30+ years experience, that’s who. What are you bringing to the table?
I say it’s safe too. I wouldn’t hesitate to drive that from Land’s End to John O’ Groats, and on my own Operator’s Licence too. I’ve been driving a truck since 1986 and I’ve never once seen a bag of sand which has come off of a trailer.
As said, there seems to be a mentality which says that if a load isn’t strapped down, it must automatically be unsafe. Some of the blokes I work with will spend an hour strapping a load of potato crisps, even though there isn’t 100 kilogram per pallet and the trailer has load-bearing curtains. When I ask them why they are doing it, they normally smirk and say “I’m paid by the hour!”
Then when they get there, half of the load is rejected because the boxes are damaged.
I work on a farm and our fertiliser and seed gets delivered in the same way as this … Also when we are running it from the farm to the field which can sometimes be 10-15 miles we put 24 bags on a trailer without strapping them … If you get them really tight together and straight they are that heavy they won’t budge even on the sharpest of bends … You wil be surprised how stable that back strap actually keeps the load
truckyboy:
how do you know every bag has 800kg in it ? and as for the other numpties commenting negatively, its none of your business how any driver secures his load, in all honesty that exactly how i would have secured it, those bags are going absolutely no where, even with NO straps, my only worry is with VOSA who themselves merely follow the rules their bosses give to them on the way to milk hgv drivers of their hard earned cash, and all because some idiot in road research lab somewhere in outer mongolia, say that a bag of sand fell off of his donkey about 30 years ago.
Actually its everybodies business, if they use the roads and feel a load is unsafe on another vehicle they have a right to bring it to the drivers attention, report it, post it on TNUK.
Think most of us would add a little extra to this load in the current climate, in fact 20 years ago I would have done more than just one strap over the back…
Edit: Oh alright some of us not ‘most of us’
Dont see the problem and its not everyones buisness only people who have got nothing better to do than take photos I cant beleive he actually stopped to take the picture think some of you have far to much time on your hands must be all the sitting about you all do in rdcs.
fumny thing thou never seen one of them loads come of but seen many come thru curtains
truckyboy:
how do you know every bag has 800kg in it ? and as for the other numpties commenting negatively, its none of your business how any driver secures his load, in all honesty that exactly how i would have secured it, those bags are going absolutely no where, even with NO straps, my only worry is with VOSA who themselves merely follow the rules their bosses give to them on the way to milk hgv drivers of their hard earned cash, and all because some idiot in road research lab somewhere in outer mongolia, say that a bag of sand fell off of his donkey about 30 years ago.
Actually its everybodies business, if they use the roads and feel a load is unsafe on another vehicle they have a right to bring it to the drivers attention, report it, post it on TNUK.
Think most of us would add a little extra to this load in the current climate, in fact 20 years ago I would have done more than just one strap over the back…
Edit: Oh alright some of us not ‘most of us’
Dont see the problem and its not everyones buisness only people who have got nothing better to do than take photos I cant beleive he actually stopped to take the picture think some of you have far to much time on your hands must be all the sitting about you all do in rdcs.
fumny thing thou never seen one of them loads come of but seen many come thru curtains
Fair point, yes its strange why a photo would be taken of this, but it is everyones business- in fact its quite worrying that a driver of a large vehicle would think it isn’t. Guess its down to opinions and states of mind, Anyone who thinks they would be safe driving past a VOSA checkpoint like this is nuts, anyone who thinks this load is OK and won’t move I can’t really disagree with too strongly as I feel the same.
Whats annoying is anyone who comes to this thread who has just passed their test thinking the old buggers know what they are talking about.
This load in the current climate is insecure (when on the move), that is an absolute fact- no amount of Oh we have done it like this for years will work here.
Course it brings to light why the dCPC is so important- its for the old bugger brigade who think they know it when in reality they know ■■■■ all. But carry on do it your own way and I will do it mine.
Dipper_Dave:
Sometimes the phrase - ‘you can’t argue with stupid’ is just not enough.
No matter crack on guys, do it your way and I will do it mine.
I do wonder if theres a few folks one here whose bottoms are jealous of the poop that comes out their keyboard fingers.
The load as we all know is safe as houses (in the hands of the average driver in normal conditions)and it would take a real numpty to lose any of this. This may come as a shock to some but the reason we secure loads above and beyond what is required is for that ‘abnormal condition’ we don’t expect.
+1.
“Gravity is not a load restraint”, that’s what a Plod told me once about 15 years ago, when he made me rope a load similar to this (Top soil) after he’d stopped me going up the hill just past Loughton on the M25. (Tossa) I only cross roped the 2 rear bags & he saw it, plain as day, got me by the short & curleys.
I got a Bollocking & was lucky not to get reported, these days, Plod will not give you a second chance, too much money at stake, there’s potentially a couple of Grand Fine in a load like this.
I’m not an old hand and I’m not one for strapping things down unnesseserily either but the way I see is it If it’s heavy it gets strapped because I’d rather not find out the hard way if it will move or not, theirs enough to worry about on the road as it is.
My original statement stays, I still regard it as unsecured. Now, I’m long enough in the tooth after 40 years of driving lorries to know it probably wont go anywhere. Lordy knows I have pulled my fair share of goods with nothing but gravity holding then down to the deck of a tilt or Tautliner.
But ‘the times they are a changing’ and these days everyone seems to have their hands in my pocket looking for cash. VOSA wont be one of them for me. So now everything gets strapped, stupid in some cases I admit, but I have enough trouble funding myself let alone anyone else.
We know they wont move, we know that if you turn it over the bags will stay until the sand has ran out of them all. The new regime tells us, that as professional steering wheel attendants, that we should take all reasonable steps to secure the goods to the deck. Thats what they want us to do, it is not being a sheep to follow those instructions, it is adapting to the new set of goalposts, and jumping through the new hoops that have been set for us.
What we need here is a test case. A willing soul who transports these type of loads every day, who just throws a couple of straps around the back of 26 bags of aggregate. This willing soul should, sometime in the next week or so drive like a willing lamb into the first VOSA checkpoint he comes to and say in true Ken Dodd fashion, ‘hows this for a restrained load then?’
Dipper_Dave:
Whats annoying is anyone who comes to this thread who has just passed their test thinking the old buggers know what they are talking about.
This load in the current climate is insecure (when on the move), that is an absolute fact- no amount of Oh we have done it like this for years will work here.
Course it brings to light why the dCPC is so important- its for the old bugger brigade who think they know it when in reality they know [zb] all. But carry on do it your own way and I will do it mine.
You,ll be an old bugger one day though, and you will do the same as us older drivers are doing now,
in fact in 20 yrs time with the way things are going you will be telling some young newbie driver
“Eeehh, i remember when we only needed 28 straps to fasten a load in a curtainsider”
^^^ I imagine in the future someone will have come up with an ingenius solution to replace the curtainsiders we have today. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
Sign of the times.
I imagine in the future someone will have come up with an ingenius solution to replace the curtainsiders we have today. Hopefully sooner rather than later.