NEJ:
The answer here is for all the ■■■■■■■■ and personal insults to stop and try and give the driver some honest advice as that is all he was asking for!
Er…I did. Took me bloody ages as well. 
Spardo:
Well, for what it’s worth IMO Paul has it right but he could have been much more diplomatic without laying into Reef who was only pointing out the dangers of overtightening straps. Perhaps he made a small error in relying on side raves but so what? It was easy enough to put right without going overboard.
As an oldie who was brought up on chains and sylvesters before straps were invented I would go for chains everytime, and use a tube extension, and keep my face out of the way.However I did operate after straps arrived and treated them with caution. The advice about regular checking and sharp edge protection is well made. A driver of mine once lost a full load of sheet steel because he didn’t follow the above advice. On a city street we were lucky no-one was killed and not a little bit fortunate that it was all handballed back on before the old bill arrived.
Thankyou david
We can only do the job the way weve been taught (whether that be right or wrong)and i agree for such a potentially lethal load there should be better training involved
where i worked the majority of the work was groupage so sometimes youd have steel/nickel drums/machinery on the bulk head because that was the last drop and the one behind it may have been a backdoor rdc tip, So my point was where else would you strap onto but the side rails (obviously no chassis rail there coz of the kingpin) and also a lot of the trailers we had didnt have anchorage points either (old SDC’s) someone else raised the point of side skirts on the trailer we had some of them too we didnt use flats as we were general haulage with curtainsiders not steel stockholders with flats we did however have quite a lot of schmitz trailers which most of them had the anchorage points and they would be used (along with the chassis as ive just remembered (rather embarrisingly 
)
It is a good point you make paul i was just a bit pee’d off with the way you decided to make it + you never acknowledged the point i was making originally concerning over tightening you just went off on one regarding the rails
If i have misguided any reader then i apologise that was not my intention
Im sure your as much a muppet as i am a druggie paul
ahhhhhh then we all kissed and made up 
seriously, theres too much sh*t in the world as it is, the poor bloke only asked a simple question and its all handbags at 10 paces, gotta love this site
chaversdad:
paul b:
hows it panning out now tdg are running the show? i finished just as they were taking over but the word was they were going to route wagons to cut out the empty running etc which would’ve been sound for me on a load by load rate.they arnt perfect paul, but i do hardly any emty running at all now, they really do look after the little man as well which is surprising with the likes of prestons, stilers, clugstons, truswells etc all after the same work
i was on mainly brightbar out of rotherham for truswells, making up the work with coils and ingots/blooms and really enjoyed the work while it lasted but as a subbie nothing lasts forever, a shakeup in the office saw me out of favour and that was that. wondered how it would work out as truswells had the brightbar contract for years and nobody else would touch it because of all the problems with carrying the stuff so i guess they’re still doing it now?
talking of securing loads, on one occasion last year a driver working for another subbie ended up doing my regular load, which was a 9.00 tip at corus wednesbury, you tipped and then reloaded more intersite stock for rotherham and fetched it back, on this particular day there was only a part load ready, about 14t of 4mtr bars which are strapped into aprox 1t bundles, the driver had never loaded the stuff so left it to the warehouse men to sort out, the pillocks loaded eight bundles against the headboard and then for some unknown reason put the remainder half way down the trailer leaving about a ten foot gap between the two rows, the drivers sheeted it up and set off, got to the roundabout at j9 for the m6, had to brake a bit harder than he would’ve like and the inevitable happened, the second row of steel shot down the trailer! the bloke felt it move but as it was under the sheet thought nothing of it and carried on, but when the shunter took the trailer up that night to tip and took the sheets off all hell broke loose, they used posted trailers for this work and the outer bundle on the offside had hit one of the posts shooting bars down either side of it, basically he’d driven it best part of 100 mile with nothing holding it on the trailer apart from the ropes on the sheet, how it stayed on when he came through rotherham nobody knows! and this was loaded by men who do nothing but tip and load trailers everyday!
with machinery secure the piece then protect it
strap then sheet not sheet then strap
of course machines are best carried in a tilt or euroliner
Lucy:
Not true Lovelyperson - see explanation above. It also depends on the weight rating of the strap - and, perhaps more pertinantly, the ratchet. Many a time people have been caught out by using a strap rated to 5 tonnes without realising the ratchet is only good for 3 (or whatever). They should be marked somewhere - if they are too old for that, don’t use them.
I got that from a Union representant of Arbed in Luxembourg who explained that for Injurence reason and Health and Safety per 1000kg a minimum of one Strapp is needed,if Steel is not oiled.
One of the Reason is,that you Strapps can’t fix like Chains,and by movement of Load will Strapps breaking,how strong they are ever.
oiled Steel only with Chains.
about ratched is usually that they are parts of Strapps,when you buy it,and if you have 2500kg Strapps may you not fit Ratched for 1500kg Strapps,as stronger Strapps are more big.
hitch:
with machinery secure the piece then protect it
strap then sheet not sheet then strapof course machines are best carried in a tilt or euroliner
watch the Havy Point too,please 
Cheers for that, Lovlyperson, I learnt something there. 
I worked opposite of the Steelcompany by a Transporteur,and we came in Talk as there were Companies with Drivers from Eastern Europe which were not Injured and not paid Tax for theres Pay.So we talked than about carrying Steel,as he frightened about slipping Steel by a Emergencybrake.
will ask for advice but i think night shift is all polls day shift were exellent last time showed me everything was straps they used last time but waggons had sides to them the artic didint just a bit scarry but supose it was like that on my first time with them as well
raymond888uk:
will ask for advice but i think night shift is all polls day shift were exellent last time showed me everything was straps they used last time but waggons had sides to them the artic didint just a bit scarry but supose it was like that on my first time with them as well
can you not go in in the day time to ask for advice/training then?? I know thats what i would do
I know you may not get paid for it but surely thats better than injuring or killing yourself or someone else
(hopefully that bit of advice doesnt upset to many steel carriers named paul )
Reef:
raymond888uk:
will ask for advice but i think night shift is all polls day shift were exellent last time showed me everything was straps they used last time but waggons had sides to them the artic didint just a bit scarry but supose it was like that on my first time with them as wellcan you not go in in the day time to ask for advice/training then?? I know thats what i would do
I know you may not get paid for it but surely thats better than injuring or killing yourself or someone else(hopefully that bit of advice doesnt upset to many steel carriers named paul
quite funny that as my names paul as well 
chaversdad:
Reef:
raymond888uk:
will ask for advice but i think night shift is all polls day shift were exellent last time showed me everything was straps they used last time but waggons had sides to them the artic didint just a bit scarry but supose it was like that on my first time with them as wellcan you not go in in the day time to ask for advice/training then?? I know thats what i would do
I know you may not get paid for it but surely thats better than injuring or killing yourself or someone else(hopefully that bit of advice doesnt upset to many steel carriers named paul
quite funny that as my names paul as well
raymond888uk:
hi going on a flatbed on monday and need advice on securing the loadhow do you do it wits chains
and how do you keep straps tight is it just get out and check them often
cheers
Personally I don’t think you should be doing it without training, in fact I’d go as far as to say there should be a certificate for such loads…
As a numpty newbee on general I would often run with steel on curtains and flats, and looking back should never have been allowed. Eventually I found myself running out of Corus, one week induction in classroom and on site was the most rewarding time ever spent, it certainly opened my eyes to how dangerous this stuff can be and what a complete idiot I was
Like Paul B says,bright bar was something you treated with respect.I used to carry it out of Sheffield in the late 60’s and was never afraid to ask for advice.A lot of drivers used an old sheet folded to a good thickness and put up to the headboard.You then loaded you first lifts up to it and it was surprising how secure the load was - never looked like penetrating the sheet.
Just something that you picked up off more experienced drivers.There was always somebody to put you right as long as you asked.
most of the drivers in corus hated doing brightbar but i quite enjoyed it, but i carried everything i could ever need for any load, pegged timbers, packers, ply boards for seperating each row and a butress to fix to the back of the load to stop it shifting backwards etc the lot.
first day i went in there i knew absolutely nothing about the job, there was no training, no induction, nothing but there was an old boy who was shunting that had done the job for years, first thing he said was “have you done this work before” nope! he then spent the next couple of weeks showing me how to secure all the different loads, and how to load different lenghs of bar etc, he didn’t have to, but he wanted to, sadly fellas like him seem to be dissapearing out of the job, now you get some clown in a smart suit telling you that you must wear your high vis, hard hat and plastic glasses at all times while on site but couldn’t tell you one end of a wagon from the other.
paul b:
most of the drivers in corus hated doing brightbar but i quite enjoyed it, but i carried everything i could ever need for any load, pegged timbers, packers, ply boards for seperating each row and a butress to fix to the back of the load to stop it shifting backwards etc the lot.
first day i went in there i knew absolutely nothing about the job, there was no training, no induction, nothing but there was an old boy who was shunting that had done the job for years, first thing he said was “have you done this work before” nope! he then spent the next couple of weeks showing me how to secure all the different loads, and how to load different lenghs of bar etc, he didn’t have to, but he wanted to, sadly fellas like him seem to be dissapearing out of the job, now you get some clown in a smart suit telling you that you must wear your high vis, hard hat and plastic glasses at all times while on site but couldn’t tell you one end of a wagon from the other
Agreed!
steve_24v:
Personally I don’t think you should be doing it without training
I’d tend to agree - I wouldn’t touch this sort of load without either proper training or at least someone obviously experienced showing me the ropes (or, more accurately, chains).
People may be complaining a lot about it (and to some extent I’m one of them, because of the cost), but this is somewhere that the Driver’s CPC could really help out. Companies dealing with this sort of load ought to ensure that their drivers have had approved training in securing steel loads before letting them loose on the trucks. It’s a bit crazy that you can (at the moment, AFAIK) pass a C+E driving test with a flatbed trailer, yet have no real clue about how to use that trailer to carry a load safely.
Me, I know that I don’t know how to do it safely, so I don’t try.
steve_24v wrote:
Personally I don’t think you should be doing it without training
I can hardly disagree either except for the fact that it means I therefore trust the ‘newer fellas’ less than in my day, which is sort of condescending. But the fact remains that nobody ever taught me anything about the job except for the old boy who showed my the dolly hitch, and I never lost a load as a driver.
‘Ah, but you’re something special’ I hear you all cry, , but if that was true it would mean that a lot of comtemporaries of mine were losing stuff all over the road. And I can’t remember that being so.
So. How did I learn? By thinking. If you’re new to something and there is no ‘expert’ to ask, take time to think about it. Think of all the things that can go wrong.
Can it move forward? If so put something there to stop it, be it timbers, sheets, or a combination with whatever load restraints you’ve got. A load which can be restrained from starting to move will most likely stay where it is. That is why even a comparatively flimsy headboard is a help as long as the stuff is hard against it. If not, even a few inches is enough movement to make something unstoppable once it gets going.
Can it move sideways? If so put enough of what you’ve got to stop it doing so, and watch and check for tightness frequently. Remember, if it can start to move straps won’t stop it, but tight straps will stop the initial movement.
Can it move backwards? You may think not, but if an inefficiently secured load is allowed to bounce (mainly I admit with old fashioned steel suspensions) that again is our old enemy, movement. Every time it bounces up, the truck moves forward a bit relative to it. And before you know it it has slipped out of the lead restraint.
So, to sum up a long and boring post to all except, I hope, Raymond,
- Ask or get training
- Think, and don’t rush this bit.
- Secure, as a result of your conclusions and check, check, check.
- Remember the adage - if it can move a little bit, it can move alot.
2 straps on 28 ton of beams
you use that many ■■? 
1 over the back if your lucky
only jokin
best tip i can give on top of everything else is be thought of as that idiot who always put to many straps/ chains (depending on the type size etc )on than the idiot who lost his load on the 1 roundabout out of the yard