Securement Question

That's one of my major complaints, to much is left up to interpretation. Then are interpreted by an officer with no idea what he's talking about.

 

I was just reading that earlier looking for something else, it's ok if each section is chained as if they are separate.

 

It is, the rules say "Articulated vehicles shall be restrained in a manner that prevents articulation while in transit" nothing about an articulation lock. But some DOT guys get a little carried away. I might have told this story before on here but here it is again what the heck. Several years ago I got pulled around at the Cambridge eastbound scales with a 325 or some other excavator on, a young DOT cop comes out telling me I can't chain to the top flange of my trailer, I was traveling to an ODOT job so I was exempt from DOT inspection and he let me go. That in itself was weird, traveling to an ODOT job exempts you from inspections but doesn't give you the right to have an unsecure load so if he was right he should have written me, sorry off track. Anyway it made me mad, the next week the Delaware northbound scale pulled me around with a smaller machine. The DOT guy was an older real nice guy. After my inspection I asked him about what had happened the week before. He told me to ask the officer to show in the book exactly where this was written. He said if he can't show me then tell him "to go suck an egg" those were his exact word I've never forgotten them. I told him I wasn't going to say that to an officer, he why the heck not he's no better than you, he has to show the judge what he cited you for. He said that when he's inspecting he tries to look at the spirit off the law. For example in this case do the chains prevent articulation? If the due the burden has been met. Ever since then I've argued several times (politely of course) several times I've had them tell me they would "let it go this time" which I usually interpret to mean they aren't sure and don't want to risk it. I usually feel the situation out, if they just want to lecture me I take it, if they want to write me for it that's when I question, you have to be careful because they'll start looking for other stuff. For the most part I get along pretty well with the cops I deal with, I usually try to joke around a little and listen to their dumb speeches they like to give, that seems to make them happy. But that's what I was saying earlier an ignorant cop make make a lot of trouble for you if they "think" they know what they're doing.

 

The Cat 740 we have doesn't have a lock bar, it has these stupid locks that bolt around the cylinders which are a PITA so I just chain it. One of the thing I've never got clarification on, some people say that chains like that, or holding down a boom don't count toward your total aggregate wll. I usually leave them out of my equation just to cover my rear.

 

We had the Feds come in and give a securement class thanks to one driver. That is specifically what he told us. Any chains that are used to prevent articulation do not count towards the aggregate WLL of the securement on the machine.

He also told us that we need to hook our chains to the outrigger brackets instead of the frame webbing since we did not have any D rings on the trailers. A lot of the questions that we posed to them came back with "It's up to the discretion of the officer."

 

The chains not counting toward aggregate wll is the way I've always heard it, I would just like to see where this is actually written. I just leave it out of my securement calculation so it's not a big deal, just kinda irks me.

 

This was okay back in the day when anything other flagrant violations were warnings that didn't mean anything. It's totally unacceptable in this day and age of CSA warning points carrying the same weight as a violation, and digging until they find something to write, "officer's discretion" doesn't cut it.

 

Yep, took a load out of pa for jlg years ago, did it the same way, got the same speach prolly from the same guy, lol. I think common sense has to prevail.