Diary of a current Swift flatbed driver

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looks like you squeezed in there.............

 

Nope, my truck looks just like yours. 309910. But I do think I'm one of like two solo women in the division. I don't often run across our boys unless I'm in Gary or Laredo.

 

Stop stop stop..........You load a trailer, strap it down, tarp it then when you drop it at the terminal you untarp it, take your equipment off then retarp it with a yard tarp. Then when the next driver picks the load up he takes the yard tarp off, straps the load back down, then retarps it before he leaves? That has got to be the biggest pita ever.

 

lol jumbo, that was the thought that came into my head......word for word.....

 

On a side note real quick, I saw a flatbet with several steel plates some thicker ones on the bottom, probably 3/4" and on top of that looked to be 3/8ths or maybe 1/4 inch plates. They looked to be 8 feet wide by 12 feet long. The way he tied it down was about every foot with a nylon strap - so about 8 straps. I've seen other drivers use chains, and some use an X chains in the front and back to prevent sliding--this guy did not have that. What do you think?

 

depends on the weight...we haul a lot of plate in 8-10K lb bundles. So either 4-5 bundles to a load. We instruct them to load in 2 piles butted up against each other in the center of the trailer. Never load above 2' high unless absolutely necessary. We want drivers to put 3 chains over the top of each pile plus a chain looped (or 2 x-ed) around the front. Each chain is rated for at least 5K lbs and you need to have a working load limit equal to half the weight of the load. The chain around the front is key. Once steel starts to move it is gone. You have to do everything in your power to keep it from moving. We discourage nylon straps because they can cut if the steel begins to move. If you have thick enough edge protection to prevent damage to the straps, they are just as good.

 

I am not sure what Swift does, but we drop loaded flatbeds as well. We have room for 3 loaded trailers in one of our buildings and 2-3 more in our shop. We are usually just dropping when a truck gets in too late in the afternoon to unload, but has hours to take off on another load or when trucks get back on Friday afternoon and are going to leave out again on Sunday. The driver puts the trailer inside, and pulls all his equipment off. The local driver has to resecure to deliver. Usually it is plate steel so 6-8 chains (15 min) and they are on their way. We rarely have to retarp as most of our local customers understand what we do. It is actually pretty efficient. There are other times when we throw a "shop" tarp over a load of steel and leave it outside. You gotta do what you gotta do to keep the wheels turning.

Most of you would probably be surprised how quickly an experienced flatbedder can be secured, tarped and on thier way. This is true for about 90% of loads...the other 10% can be very time consuming.