Crazy securement you have seen?

Watched a guy pull out of our yard with an S-125 Genie and nothing holding it on. Boom was about 3' off the rest as well. Apparently he was just taking it "up the road a bit"

Even at the best of times I usually only see a single 5/16" chain pulled through the front and rear tie down eyelets and a 2" strap to keep the boom from bouncing. I don't claim to know the rules for securement but my spidey senses tell me 2 chains and a ratchet strap on a 45k lb machine is inadequate.

 

I once ran with an O/Op fresh out of training, He placed two chains in an X through the hole of a set of 20,000lb coils. We got a few hundred miles till we stopped for fuel, pull out of the truckstop and turn, his trailer was leaning hard, then boom you could see something went wrong inside his covered wagon. You can imagine what happened, the front coil went right as his truck went left. He was lucky it didn't roll out the side, instead it got wedged between the framework of the wagon walls.

He claimed thats what they said in safety, you need to X your chains.. but he ignored the other over the top and center to side securement. Then blamed the ripped chain pocket for the cause.... Then blamed me for his ginormous tow truck bill since I called out a 10,000lb cap. truck. At first I thought he was pissed for not calling a 50,000, but no, he wanted a 1ton pic up truck to roll it back into place.
I laughed in his face, and went on my way... you just can't help stupid.

 

This was my securement job. 5/16" chains front and rear plus 3x 2" ratchet straps. We estimated the weight to be around 6k lbs. I would have liked to have put the straps on the insides of the rub rail but the hooks wouldn't fit through there. Went about 500km like that and she never budged an inch (even pulling up Snowshed Hill on the Coq).

 

That's when you know you've done it right.

 

While unstrapping slinkies in prep for unloading in Alabama heard a commotion followed by screaming and hollering. A driver ahead had to pull up and the back slinky falls off nearly smashing up the Prime truck behind him. Turns out he drove all the way from Pueblo with these coils and did not bother (how I don't know) to use timber or coil racks.

Got dispatched to pickup another drivers load in laredo. Was given the location on Mines road and when I got close I noticed traffic was complete standstill nearing rush hour. 1.5 hours later I crawled the 4 miles to his location in the construction area in front of the Stripes to find his load of 45k steel tubing had shifted completely into his rack and done considerable damage. He had not used any belly wraps on this steel. 19 years of driving down the hole for complacency/stupidity.

 

Wednesday at ALCOA Newburgh, Indiana. Multiple inbound flats hauling tbar with nothing but a single strap on each stack. Straps right on the cut edge and no edge protection. I only saw one with two straps on the front stack. Saw several with the stacks shifted.

 

Are you allowed to use chains on T- blocks? I always just see straps.

 

Yes, you can use chains. I use both but if I'm using straps I run double with edge protection.

 

This is another reason that tarps should not be used. I'm sorry for those that would get picked on but you are driving alongside my kids and grandkids. If you are not doing it right then I want you off the road.

many of you think that DOT is just there as a revenue source but I have to disagree. Yeah they can be a bit obtuse by fining instead of teaching. 2nd time though it should be max penalty. I think the DOT should check up on more of these under tarp securement jobs.

Unless it is a new recruit, I usually do not get hassled about securement. It is because he is learning or does not understand what he sees. But I usually have more chains hanging than a prison road gang and for the most part I do not get a second look.