In Cab Securement

Securing things shouldn't end with the cargo area of the truck. Unsecured stuff in the cab can be very dangerous. Flatbedders tend to collect stuff in the cab, but what I am talking about applies no matter what you haul or what kind of trailer you pull, but I am going to explain it from a flatbedders perspective.

All kinds of things end up in the cab. Cargo straps, cheater pipes, winch bars, tool boxes, hammers, bungie cords, tarps, I even see guys with chains and binders and bottle jacks on the passenger side floor.

In an accident all this stuff goes flying around the cab beating the heck out of you. If you still are trying to control the truck during the accident and you have stuff flying around the cab, your chances of maintaining control of the truck are somewhere between slim and none.

Just a note on the bottle jack thing, Back in my former life as a scrap metal hauler, a guy I worked with turned over a dump trailer while dumping. He had a 10 ton bottle jack on the passenger side floor (scrap haulers get lots of flats). He turned over driver's side down. The bottle jack hit him in the head and almost killed him. I think he was in the hospital for a month.

So anyway my cab was getting full of stuff that I knew shouldn't be there. And I have been pulling customer's trailers a lot lately. Our company trailers are all equipped with chains, binders, and straps, but the customer's trailers may or may not have anything on them. So I have to carry them in my tractor.

Only one solution, A bigger box, It's big, green, and ugly. But there is no way I am driving around with all that dangerous stuff in my cab. I have known of too many guys that got hurt that way.



Don't laugh, I already had it, it fit right on, and bolted down really easily. It was the best solution I could come up with on short notice over the weekend.

One other thing I wanted to mention about securement, Don't forget to secure yourself with a safety belt. Not only does it keep you from going through a windshield or something like that, but it can help you stay in better control of the truck during an accident by keeping you in the seat. And I hear the DOT guys look to see who is wearing one, when they are picking out trucks to inspect.

 

I had a plastic box on there but it was too small. I really liked it too. But I found out Friday night I was going to be working breaking down and setting up cranes all this week and I had to come up with something better than having a ton of extra stuff in my cab and 8 chains in an old steel milk crate strapped down to my deck plate like I did Monday and Tuesday of last week. I have been looking for a headache rack, but it looks like I might just have to bite the bullet and buy a new one