nick2008:
Latique:
some thing along the lines of this

everything shrinkwrapped to the pallets /locator trays ,roof straps across the center of each pallet then ratchet strap front to back crossed over at the back to stop movement rearwards VOSA happy with this form of strapping at least twice for me so will carry on the same
got to ask the OP on your pic why your highest pallets are in the middle and not against the bulkhead is this for weight distribution ?
some will scoff at you for that but I take my hat off to you Driver your showing how it can and should be done with min fuss.
Would you be happy to drive it without the curtains on then?
Own Account Driver:
nick2008:
Latique:
some thing along the lines of this

everything shrinkwrapped to the pallets /locator trays ,roof straps across the center of each pallet then ratchet strap front to back crossed over at the back to stop movement rearwards VOSA happy with this form of strapping at least twice for me so will carry on the same
got to ask the OP on your pic why your highest pallets are in the middle and not against the bulkhead is this for weight distribution ?
some will scoff at you for that but I take my hat off to you Driver your showing how it can and should be done with min fuss.
Would you be happy to drive it without the curtains on then?
O-A-D … Have you ever done flat work ?
Is shrink wrap a recognised load restraint?
Surely an internal strap rated at 400kg cannot restrain 4 barrels of liquid?
jay0:
mb14:
If your asking the question you shouldnt be doing the job.
I think what he means is that the o.p should have refused the load because there is no realistic way for him to properly secure it.
I think LHD is asking our esteemed colleagues from VOSA how to strap it down, so that when they pull him they don’t do their usual thing of “it’s not safe drive, you should have done this, and this . . .”
. . . but as this forums VOSA members are conspicuous by their absence on this thread it can only be assumed they don’t have an answer, or that the answer only becomes available to them when the curtains are pulled back and the £££ signs start flashing. 
Vosa don’t have a bloody clue. I’ve pulled loads like that on a regular basis and still do, normally with more kegs on though and generally running at max weight. Drive according to your load and it is going nowhere. There is no way of securing the load fully and if the vehicle overturns the first thing the recovery team will do is cut the curtains anyway because the wreckers are not able to right vehicles whilst loaded, unless it is a very light load so all the crap coming from Vosa is just that, crap.
The thing is, this job has been dumbed down so much it is scary. Once upon a time the driver was responsible for the load end of and he had the final say if it was safe or not. Should it go pear shaped the driver and the driver alone was the one stood in the dock, not like nowadays where the office cleaner is partly to blame. They should make the dcpc pass or fail. Fail it and you aren’t driving until you pass it, that will make sure we are all at a reasonable level of knowledge for certain. Then, hand responsibility for the load back to the driver 100%. If he loses it then he is fully responsible, not the rest of us.
Depends who your driving for, if it K&N I wouldn’t bother, they’ll be on a green light anyway, so you won’t get pulled.
The VOSA are never interested in us.
He never advocated it as a form of load restraint Chester. But what it is recognised as a way of making a pallet of individual items “one” so that you only have to put a single strap over a pallet and not 2 in the case of the four barrels to a pallet.
Yes internal straps are only good for 400kgs blah blah truck hating blah. He also has a ratcheted strap running length ways down the load. He says he been pulled by VOSA and had not problems. I think this picture shows a perfectly satisfactory manner of securing THAT load. I’d drive that load without curtains all day long.
Remember Chester every load is different, and as a result will require a different manner of being restrained. Something that good drivers in the real world know and that you won’t understand from reading a textbook or an internet forum.
In the pictured load, every item was clearly known to the driver, and he watched/directed the loading meaning a safe and effective manner of restraint was possible. The picture the OP had? Well that’s a different story.
You can’t base your restraint system on who you pull for NewLad. Just because you are running on a green light doesn’t offer you a guaranteed VOSA free day. It just means you are less likely to get pulled. If it’s a slow news day for them you could get pulled regardless off your OCRS.
Have you not noticed a greater number of curtainsiders string in your local wasps nest?? I know I have, them, and tippers with no sheets.
Stanley Knife:
jay0:
mb14:
If your asking the question you shouldnt be doing the job.
I think what he means is that the o.p should have refused the load because there is no realistic way for him to properly secure it.
I think LHD is asking our esteemed colleagues from VOSA how to strap it down, so that when they pull him they don’t do their usual thing of “it’s not safe drive, you should have done this, and this . . .”
. . . but as this forums VOSA members are conspicuous by their absence on this thread it can only be assumed they don’t have an answer, or that the answer only becomes available to them when the curtains are pulled back and the £££ signs start flashing. 
Yes Stan, exactly my thoughts here too.
Dipper_Dave:
Anyway what happened in the end did you just shut the curtains and hope for the best (I would have been tempted)
Dave, I’m afraid I’ve never been a subscriber of the “everything must be strapped” book. I consider myself experienced enough at this game to use my own judgement on whether a load will shift under normal driving or not. If it hadn’t been for the centre stack on the wood pallets I would’ve just shut the curtains again (trailer was already loaded and buttoned up when I got there and no FLT drivers on shift), but I know how those kegs can slide on wood pallets and having them 3 high like that without any form of restraint would be rather silly to take out on the road imho. I made a half-arsed attempt at stopping them from falling off this side of the pallets by using same internal straps as pictured below. They would not of course have held them in place if I’d had to slam all on but I wasn’t too bothered about that and more bothered about them moving laterally. Anyway it worked just fine as my usual smooth and steady driving style got them to where they were going (2 hours down the road) without any dramas. They were up against some on the other side too and the straps were still tight like banjo strings when I got to the other end so that suggests to me they were held in place pretty well and didn’t move. 
imgur.com/gK89BnT
Now I wonder how long it will be til the thread is 10 pages long, filled with comments like "huh, call yourself a professional!
", "you’re a menace to society and should be banned!
" etc. 
F-reds:
He never advocated it as a form of load restraint Chester. But what it is recognised as a way of making a pallet of individual items “one” so that you only have to put a single strap over a pallet and not 2 in the case of the four barrels to a pallet.
Yes internal straps are only good for 400kgs blah blah truck hating blah. He also has a ratcheted strap running length ways down the load. He says he been pulled by VOSA and had not problems. I think this picture shows a perfectly satisfactory manner of securing THAT load. I’d drive that load without curtains all day long.
if you look closely you will see there are two ratchet straps one at the bottom going around the pallets that crosses over to the opposite corner so stopping the actual pallets moving then the one higher up running front to back to stop the load shifting off the pallets .before the curtain was closed a further front to rear strap was run at the midd level of the load . i would have to be driving particularly recklessly to bring the load off with those straps in place and i dont plan on doing that at any time
LHD you made the best of a bad situation that you should not have been left with. A badly loaded trailer with no means of moving anything leaving you with a dilemma. I hope you made that plain to the management of both your firm and the customer, the forkie that left it like that deserves a bollocking and some retraining.
Situations like this arise too often with the driver pig in the middle between the loading companies attitude that load safety is solely a ‘drivers responsibility’ and the same attitude from VOSA, especially with preloaded trailers.
Left hand down!:
Tell me in detail how I should go about securing this load to ensure I do not find myself on the receiving end of a VOSA fixed penalty fine :
imgur.com/DWd68Q6
Trailers do not have separate internal nets fyi.
20 Strap or a Net 
Perfect Weight Distribution. Complement to the Loader
Left hand down!:
Roy, that is basically my thoughts on it all too.
I still want the VOSA Gods from this site to tell me how THEY would secure that load, as they like to dish out their FPNs but when challenged can never come up with any answers or solutions themselves, mainly because (imo) the vast majority of them have never done the job and wouldn’t know one end of a wagon from the other.
VOSA only tell you that the load MUST be restrained/secured, not HOW to restrain/secure it.
You should be directing your questions/frustration towards your employers and asking them HOW they expect YOU to transport their products in accordance with VOSA’s directive.
content.govdelivery.com/accounts … ins/899fc8
Scroll down to the bit about load security, show it (especially the load matrix) to your employers and see what they say.
Note:- I am nothing to do with VOSA
I wonder how long it will be til the thread is 10 pages long, filled with comments like "huh, call yourself a professional!  ", "you’re a menace to society and should be banned!  " etc.Â
Not from me you won’t. If it got there in one piece and you didn’t strap everything you must be one of them proper drivers. You know who uses their judgement and has broad enough shoulders to take responsibility for his load.
A true professional I would say.
nick2008:
Rhythm Thief:
I’d get the customer to make it fit for transport.
Bang on RT your right there down to the bloody supplier and as such the driver should say " Where do I park while you sort this [zb] out " 
^^^Agreed
Or use a box trailer instead of curtain-sider■■?
Latique:
some thing along the lines of this

everything shrinkwrapped to the pallets /locator trays ,roof straps across the center of each pallet then ratchet strap front to back crossed over at the back to stop movement rearwards VOSA happy with this form of strapping at least twice for me so will carry on the same
got to ask the OP on your pic why your highest pallets are in the middle and not against the bulkhead is this for weight distribution ?
Looks good - except for the drum on the tail-lift bed!!! Drive steady!!!
F-reds:
He never advocated it as a form of load restraint Chester. But what it is recognised as a way of making a pallet of individual items “one” so that you only have to put a single strap over a pallet and not 2 in the case of the four barrels to a pallet.
Yes internal straps are only good for 400kgs blah blah truck hating blah. He also has a ratcheted strap running length ways down the load. He says he been pulled by VOSA and had not problems. I think this picture shows a perfectly satisfactory manner of securing THAT load. I’d drive that load without curtains all day long.
Remember Chester every load is different, and as a result will require a different manner of being restrained. Something that good drivers in the real world know and that you won’t understand from reading a textbook or an internet forum.
In the pictured load, every item was clearly known to the driver, and he watched/directed the loading meaning a safe and effective manner of restraint was possible. The picture the OP had? Well that’s a different story.
I never said the op did F-reds!
I asked a question on a forum dedicated to trucker drivers querying is shrink wrap a recognised load restraint?
I would have pulled that load myself in my younger days. don’t really know why you getting you knickers in a twist.
See you at CSI school next term.
it is about time the transport unions got involved and took vosa to court . where in the laws of the land does possible or maybe constitute an offence . when the laws were drawn up , insecure load was where something actually fell off a vehicle , not MIGHT fall off . i know that prevention is better than cure but it seems that vosa are making it up as they go along just to generate revenue . how far will they stretch their power before the industry is completely hamstrung ? .
In some ways I’m glad all this directive for load restraint has come in as it gives us the driver more power to decide not to take a load or trailer if we don’t beleve it can be secured properly or say we pick a trailer up and the loss hasn’t been secured refuse point blank to take it.
Also in pleased to say when I went over at Tinsley viaduct roundabout my load of timber for Montrecon trailers was still eyesore to the bed 