Anyone else hate tarping on clear sky days?

True, loading and tie down and tarp in a windy and or rainy day sure can be a PIA. Ill take a nice calm day any time.

One shipper had a habit of staging loads in the loading shed, then having the trucks load outside. one time when I went in, it was a nasty day, so when the checked me in and said it would load outside, I told them I would need to have that placed in the comments section of the BOL.

Funny was loaded inside, tied down and tarped there too.

 

I love the loads that they have to scrape the snow off of. Already wrapped in plastic and when you deliver it, it sits outside. Good thing I rarely have to tarp. Only three loads in the last 5 years.

 

From some of the tarp work I have been seeing lately, no tarp would be just as good. tarps are to expensive to not pad sharp points or make sure its tight and secured. Not sure I get the thought process behind this.

 

A couple loads ago one of our drivers had to tarp. The shipper was on point and very aware and knows where we need to go to get out of the wind. He told the driver and the driver didn't listen and had to wrestle his tarps. I ended up helping him pin them down. I bet he still doesn't listen when a shipper tells him the best place to tarp.

 

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If the shipper says it needs tarp, I will tarp it. If it's not on the rate con, I'll make sure to get more money for it. If it is on the rate con, I will still ask the shipper because more than 50% of the time, they don't need or want tarp and it was just the broker being stupid.

 

You know what I love? The loads that really do need to stay dry, really, dry, like bare coils that can't get rusty at all, they load you by crane inside, in a space that has maybe 6 inches on either side of the trailer where I can't squeeze through, so all tarping and securing is done outside. Where it's raining. And the wind is going crazy.

"Oh, just put some plastic over it before you go out there."

The wind is blowing the rain sideways. I need to do chains. I need to do edge protection on everything, everywhere. The plastic won't stay in place for half a second. But woe be unto me if a drop of water gets on anything....

 

Thats when you make sure and have the comments section state that the load was finished outside in the rain at shippers demand.

 

I had a blind shipment of rusty pipe once last winter. Rust all over it. The load was from I think Florida to Texas. When I got to Texas I asked why the tarp. Their reply was because of all the salt in Pennsylvania. Blind shipments suck.

 

In the winter for sure, chlorides used for deicing can cause a very seroius amount of damage to metals.