How dang lazy can they get??!?

Those straps look like they are at an angle of about 45° to the side of the deck. According to tiedown manufacturer literature I've been reading over the past couple weeks, the angle effects the WLL of a tiedown, and 45° only gives about 70% of WLL (link page 9, opens into a pdf; and yes, I know it's for chain, but it applies in other products as well).

The DOT/MOT doesn't enforce angles, but when the manufacturer is telling me it has an effect on the strength of their product, I'm beginning to think there is more to this than throwing a bunch of straps and rolling down the road.

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I'm going to speculate here a little, but give me the benefit of the doubt. Those look like solid metal ingots. Assuming they aren't steel (if they were, less than half that load would be on the trailer), I'm also assuming the trailer isn't overloaded, so we are talking anywhere from 40,000-45,000 lbs net, on average (could be more, I can't see the tractor).

So that gives us an aggregate working load limit of 20,000-22,500 lbs. Assuming those are MARKED tiedowns (if they aren't marked, they are given a base WLL of 4,000 lbs), we have a combined system WLL of 32,400 lbs. So yes, we are fulfilling the weight requirement of §393.106. But what about length?

§393.110 states we require two tiedowns for the first 10', and one additional tiedown for each section or fraction of 10' from there when something is NOT BLOCKED against forward movement. None of these bundles are blocked against forward movement.

So assuming this is a 48' trailer, we have approximately one foot gap between cargo and both the front and rear of the trailer, and about a 4' gap in the middle. Those are 21' bundles. Anything not blocked, that's four straps. Each group on the deck only has three, and the group on top has only two.

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This load is asking for an OOS citation for insecure cargo. This is absolutely laziness in the extreme and a huge risk to life and property.

 

Could you cite the FMCSR's where it states this?

 

Don't need to know where it's at but its correct if you have no headboard.

 

Umm, no it's not.

 

You are absolutely correct. I forgot about the darn headboard penalty strap.

But you could do it with 8. Each bundle will have 4 straps. The 4 on the top will overt lap the bottom bundles, 2 each. At 18 feet they need 4. 3 for length and an additional 1 for no headboard.

 

Please find the fmcsa requirement for this. I won't hold my breath because it doesn't exist.

 

It's usually best not to base your securement off a hunch.

 

No argument from me. On that top bundle, I would try to put the straps around the areas with dunnage. The back 2 straps on the top bundle would be the first two for the back bottom bundle, 10ft, and then the fraction. 8 would cover the regs.

 

Yep that's what i was envisioning. Putting the straps on the top stack so they also count for the bottom.