Do not be lazy with your load securement. You can get cited and fired.

Over the last 20 years just about every flatbed company has been going to buy TMC. They have been around since the early 70’s doubt they are going anywhere soon.

Now back when wyane wise died, it seems that Western Ex been shopping the flatbed division out to potential buyers. One was P&S. From what I understand, the price asked versus the valuation was not inline. Seems the division had quite a bit of debt as well. No sale.

 

P&S ain't buying TMC. Rumors of TMC's eventual demise have been floating around for decades. Another one I heard was P&S bought Boyd Bros. Which is also so much coffee counter #########. Both TMC and Boyd are fine financially, as far as I can determine.

 

My Google-## has failed me. Best I can do is point you to a DOT enforcement officer. That's where I've been hearing it for the last half decade. In both OH and MI. That's what their DOT wants to see, whether it is law or not. We DID have a couple of drivers ticketed in MI for failure to throw a strap over top (Unsecured Load), but I don't know the final verdict on those tickets.

So is mine. But I have noticed that by throwing straps over top that my chains get a lot tighter. I've also noticed on my load checks later (I haul 600+ mile runs a fair amount of time) that my chains don't loosen as easily in transit. For those two reasons, the additional five minutes of securement are worth it to me.

 

Boyd Bros actually did have some close relations with P&S, traded a lot of employees over the years. Actually the P&S lease program is based off the Boyd/WTI model.
It was never a question of P&S or Boyd looking to buy the other out, just was not going to happen.

Daseke is the current owner of Boyd Bros. They own a number of flatbed companies, they are the largest flatbed operators in tthe US.

 

It was a rumor I heard at the coffee counter. From a Boyd driver, no less. Wishful thinking? Who cares.

And Daseke is the largest. For now. P&S seems hellbent on beating them in size, they way they keep buying up companies.

 

It was guys in the flatbed section here that taught me to do that. I did more research a few months ago and you aren't using the full WLL of the pocket unless you are wrapping it entirely.

I just wish my company would send us to pick up coils with the trailers with proper coil packages (and the j-hook tracks with the j-hooks). I had a real hard time tarping it well because of the overhang of the chains/binders. Fortunately it didn't rain/snow on my way back.

 

Eye to sky gained straps over the top. X Pattern and then a cross side to side over it.

Also the pallet they sat on gained something like one inch by four inch wood in a nailed cribbing pattern at each corner in Logan Ky at the Aluminum Plant there.

Mack E-6's picture is flawed, the inner wood peices have a sharp corner pressing into the coil causing damage, That inner corner should be beveled with a battery powered circular saw end to end so the coil will not have any "Pain" from excessively sharp points.

Having to stop short is very much a temper generator lost on me. However it's the oncoming head on with drunken people still in their teens that really anger me. Ohio comes to mind. I go through the situation in my head now and then and wonder how THAT would have played out. 80000 pounds at 40 mph vs a 72 era Buick LeSabre Convertable filled with 7 drunken kids at 50 plus.

 

Not true. If it's sitting on the deck, like in the OP picture, then that's true. If it's sitting in a cradle like it's supposed to be than any securement, whether through the eye or over the top, is helping to keep it down in the cradle and helping to prevent the cradle from sliding forward by increasing the friction on the friction mats between the racks and the deck.

It doesn't replace chains pulling front and rear on a coil, but a strap over the top certainly does have a significant increase on the total securement on a coil sitting in a rack.