First Flatbed Load, Is this secured right?

Like @JonJon78, I would have put at least one strap angled accross the front stack and one across the back stack. X's usually aren't allowed to count as part of the WLL, so they are more of an additional insurance policy, in this case, because if for whatever reason the straps become loose, you have layered material there that can slide on each other, and the diagonal in my case and the X in @JonJon78 's case, are more of an attempt to restrain any movement in the off chance that straps don't bear down tight enough or become too loose to keep the friction between layers. The inside pile can be arrested by the front and back pile, but if the middle pile develops enough inertia, it can shoot the front or back layer at it's level out..even if the strap is tight enough and the friction is there, because the momentum of the loose piece may force it to move....so those diagonals and X's are just for that off chance, they don't take long to do,...and makes you feel a whole lot better...if by chance...you find that they did indeed arrest a moving piece of layer.

 

You know, I always wondered, why did they do away with bulkheads on flatbeds. I mean, what, if anything is going to hang over the front? I did very little flatbed, but the ones without a bulkhead always had some sort of "cross securement" on the front.

 

Probably what you would see most would be 60’ pipe and 60’ rebar. On 48’ trailers we had to get at least 5’ over the front to keep the rear projection in limit. Now even with 53’s you have to be way over the front. Our trailers are mostly tridems, so rear projection is measured from the middle of the tridem, if the trailer has a 12’ spread youre almost 8’ into your allowable rear projection before you’re even off the back of the trailer.

 

Weight and versatility for over length forward. That's my guess.

It would probably be debatable whether the forward bulkhead or whatever definition to prevent forward movement would count for the rear two but just to be clear it's 1 per 10ft with an extra only required if there's nothing in front of it. Pallets especially. If you have them all loaded together you'll be fine with two on the lead 2 and one on the rest. I've gotten kudos for doing the back two when I was hauling tippy mulch by a Maine trooper doing inspections.

The one thing you really have to remember is you secure for the ride. Look at where the forces are going to be acting. Primarily forward force from braking and side forces from turning. Only really have to worry about backwards in floppy stuff that can shift in transit.

 

We don’t run bulkheads on any of our trailers. They get in the way and are not required. Unless the load is touching a solid bulkhead, in an accident they aren’t going to do anything anyway. Once that load starts coming forward it’s not going to stop at the bulkhead.

 

Use enough securement that you could hang the trailer upside down and nothing would fall off. Some cops will write a ticket for improper securement if anything falls off in a roll over incident.

@D.Tibbitt

 

Also be aware there are some dumb ### cops that will right a ticket for not having two straps in the first 10 feet. It's not the law but they wrote the ticket.

 

did this happen to you? it is required if you have no bulkhead. or anything blocking the front of the freight.. 1 strap for 10 feet of freight and then a penalty strap if no bulkhead. i would show them the green book where the regulation is listed for that if they wanted to write a ticket. that will get thrown out in court in 10 seconds. you wouldnt even need a lawyer.

 

The enforcement for profit program banks on you paying the $400 ticket rather than losing thousands to fight it, and it usually works. A guy can write 200 tickets with his day off for a court date and not lose any of them, if he picks the right plates to write them to. They do it all the time.

 

Coworker got that one. I told him over and over to contest it but he didn't care to. A good example of something unsecurable with "securement every 10 ft" is bridge beams with an empty span in the middle. Not quite the 2 in 10 refutation, but another often misinterpreted rule.