A flatbedder's worst nightmare

I don't know if this is the exact material, but I have been given the honor of viewing industry type videos that show what a spread axle flatbed can possibly take before a failure of some kind occurs which is preventable. They had one on a skid pad with a Mack Daycab and did J turns at about 29 mph and then did it again at 30 and boom it tipped over, then broke loose a little bit unraveling. All that sharp steel ugh...

I remember the Frederick MD 76 exit mm 54 I think 355 route, wb exit ramp with the S in it. The middle S had a coil that punched through the side of a flatbed taking it too fast mashed a van with people in it. To this day Im not certain how that van and coil got to meet in that S there. Maybe the coil chased to the van and then mashed it. Its twice the size of it. The flat bed was most certainly totaled with frame failure in that one.

Thus endeth lesson. Keep a sharp eye out for rogue coils chasing your car. If you see it coming. GTFO in any way you can.

 

I feel lots safer hauling things like coils on a step deck. Sure, it may still get you but jumping the neck is bound to slow it down somewhat.

I don’t do coils normally, but we haul a lot of crane and forklift counterweights. They won’t roll like a coil but are flat and slick. We haul them mostly on step decks. It would be almost impossible for a counterweight slab to jump the neck in a crash.

 

Pretty much all I haul are coils. Suicide, shotgun, and eye to the sky.

Love it when I've got whiny box draggers sniveling into their cb radios cause I'm moving a bit more slowly in slick conditions, heavy traffic, or tight turns.

Sorry, door swingers. My load will kill me. Your precious time ain't worth my life, or someone else's, just cause YOU are in a hurry.

 

Too many don't realize that the loads in a box can kill them just as easily.

 

Some things hauled in a van would make a flatbed driver sweat. Some shady loads!

 

The only time we have ever moved coils if for a local metal stamping place. They have two factories, about 2 miles from one another. They have a old truck they use to move stuff from one factory to the other, but when it breaks down, they sometimes call us to move coils. So, the most we have ever hauled coils is a couple of miles at a time.

Since I’m not very well versed in coil hauling, why not haul them all shotgun? They do seem a little harder to tie down shotgun, and I would think maybe that they are harder to keep from rolling off the side, but there wouldn’t be as much concern of it tapping you in the back of the head.

On our short runs, we do haul them suicide, but we just move slowly over a couple of miles, never even reaching high gear.

 

How so? In the suicide position you have chains directly preventing forward movement.

I tend to like that.

 

On the Ravens we have little 4 link pullups every 2 feet on both edges of the aluminum deck. Those are rated to 5000 pound working limit and I think 7000 breaking.

You can very easily impose at least that much against those little pullups in a accident impact type scenario. Even a hard stop you can hear them creaking back there.

 

Even loaded shotgun there should be securement preventing forward and reward movement. X chains and what I refer to as horseshoe chains. You can see my X chains in this picture straps over the top. When hauled shotgun regs require at least one securement device over the top

@m16ty I prefer top load coils shotgun as I feel I can get more securement on one verses suicide. However load orientation usually depends on what either the shipper or reciever is capable of using to take the coil of. Us steel, steel dynamics loads coils with an overhead crane and can set them in any orientation based on reciever needs. Arcelor Mittal in burned harbor loads inside with a crane, and outside with a 40ton coil lift/ modified forklift and can only load suicide.