On friday back in yard got memo from your boss saying we must strap the load first then sheet it,as h&s say hooks on trailor are not strength tested so they cannot be used for tying on the load.What a load of bull,been doing it for 30yrs why know is it not good enough.
Maybe this will help…
dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/vehicle … hicles.pdf
Load security has been the feature of many threads recently, maybe you should have a look.
prefer to strap to the chassis anyway rather than hooks.
glenman:
prefer to strap to the chassis anyway rather than hooks.
You shouldn’t strap to the rope hooks with a normal ratchet strap anyway, the hook on the end of the strap is not designed to be used in that way, it’s highly unlikely, but it could split open & in today’s HSE obsessed world, could is good enough for it to cost you 
strapping from the chassis rails is probably the best way, but it’s impossible by the trailer bogie or where the chassis thins out over the pin, then you have no choice but to use the side rave.
The whole thing is stupid really, a British flat trailer is designed to be used with ropes, if you’re now going to only be allowed to use straps then a ratchet strap is no good for it, you need the system that the North Americans & Australians use, where the ratchet is fixed to the trailer permanently or on a sliding rail so you have more flexibility where you can place them, I’ve used this method (as well as traditional ropes & sheets) I have to say that it is a good idea, you use a 3/4ft bar to tighten the ratchets & you can bend steel if you’re heavy enough to give it some oomph on the bar 
Typically this whole load securement issue is being handled very badly, all of a sudden you cannot use methods which have been used since the invention of the wheel, there’s no warning that you need to do things differently, no lead up to it where people can get the correct equipment, you load your trailer on Friday & get nicked on Monday & they (the law) wonder why we don’t like them
alf apsey:
On friday back in yard got memo from your boss saying we must strap the load first then sheet it,as h&s say hooks on trailor are not strength tested so they cannot be used for tying on the load.What a load of bull,been doing it for 30yrs why know is it not good enough.
i can’t remember the last time i saw a truck from valencia with sheets on a flat 
who do you work for to tell you that, h&s in spain
I think theres going to be lots of trouble ahead over this issue, I don’t understand what the problem is really I’m out & about most days & carn’t remember the last time I saw something fall off a flat lorry, I did however see a Portugese mega euroliner taking up a lane & a half last Wednesday creeping up the M6 with the load hanging out the side. The cant rail looked like a dogs hind leg I suspect the lazy ■■■■ driving it had’nt bothered putting his boards in.
Most blokes on flats in this day & age have been at it for donkeys years now & know how to secure a load, the same cannot be said for the tautliner brigade.
I wonder how many of us double use a strap IE put a half hitch on a rope hook & use it to go over again after we’ve ratcheted it up 1st time over? Is this now illegal?
I wonder what the Vosa officer will have to say for himself in court against a bloke whose load has’nt moved an inch & has been doing the job for 30 years the same way but is disputing the 3 points & £60 fine that Vosas book says he should be given?
Does a strap become illegal if its twisted? In North America most drivers put a twist in their straps to save them buzzing & cutting into the load & snapping.
Fly sheet
fly sheet:
I think theres going to be lots of trouble ahead over this issue, I don’t understand what the problem is really I’m out & about most days & carn’t remember the last time I saw something fall off a flat lorry, I did however see a Portugese mega euroliner taking up a lane & a half last Wednesday creeping up the M6 with the load hanging out the side. The cant rail looked like a dogs hind leg I suspect the lazy [zb] driving it had’nt bothered putting his boards in.Most blokes on flats in this day & age have been at it for donkeys years now & know how to secure a load, the same cannot be said for the tautliner brigade.
I wonder how many of us double use a strap IE put a half hitch on a rope hook & use it to go over again after we’ve ratcheted it up 1st time over? Is this now illegal?
I wonder what the Vosa officer will have to say for himself in court against a bloke whose load has’nt moved an inch & has been doing the job for 30 years the same way but is disputing the 3 points & £60 fine that Vosas book says he should be given?
Does a strap become illegal if its twisted? In North America most drivers put a twist in their straps to save them buzzing & cutting into the load & snapping.
Fly sheet
now heres the interesting part, this not using rope hooks has been on the go since the load safty book was revised in 2002, so why are they now 8 years later starting too make a song and dance about it? it seems too have we can make money out of this written all over it
I use ratchet straps all the time to secure tractors on a lowloader upto 5 ton using rope hooks as a securing point. Never had one break, never lost a load. I would reckon on a strap breaking before a rope hook gave way. Whats the problem?
i know its ■■■■ but to quote the rule book. the strap is tested to withstand a certain ammount of force whereas the hook is not. but we all know a bit of metal is fairly strong. thats just how the pound per square inch mob see it
joedwyer1:
i know its ■■■■ but to quote the rule book. the strap is tested to withstand a certain ammount of force whereas the hook is not. but we all know a bit of metal is fairly strong. thats just how the pound per square inch mob see it
Actually they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been off the road for just over a year but was looking to get back on soon. I’m getting increasingly worried by all this malarkey with a clean license of 30+ yrs.
I do think there will be trouble ahead. Many cases of VOSA alleged load insecurity will begin to appear in court. The driver will attend & explain he’s been doing this job for 10/20/30/40+ years & never even had a load move, let alone lost one.
Judges are not stupid people & will soon begin to see they are having their time wasted.
Further:
BS EN 12640:200111 gives specific guidance on the number of lashing points required
for vehicles in order to secure loads. It also states:
Vehicles with lashing points in compliance with this standard, shall be fitted with
a marking plate … in a clearly visible place. For the convenience of users the
tensile load should be indicated in daN.
In relation to the use of curtain-sided vehicles for road transport, BS EN 12642:200112
Time permitting, I’m rather busy at present, I’ll try to find more on that, its from a 240 page gov. doc.
Jonni c:
I use ratchet straps all the time to secure tractors on a lowloader upto 5 ton using rope hooks as a securing point. Never had one break, never lost a load. I would reckon on a strap breaking before a rope hook gave way. Whats the problem?
I’ve got rope hooks all down the side of my Andover body, you could rope the Ark Royal on board and never bend the hooks. I use them all the time never been an issue.
30 odd years ago military trucks all had the tie down hooks and shackles etc colour coded which you could relate to how many tons you could strap down with them.
even back then we were told that hooks should be only used for roping your sheets down.
everyday you listen to the radio and one of the things you here is shed load or lost load so really i aint surprised that vosa are cracking down but i have over the years ( depending on the load) threw a sheet over the top and roped it down with no straps underneath and aswell as looking pretty that load was,nt going to move.
back then there was a certain pride related to roping and sheeting a load down and even having it look nice. how times change 
Fly Sheet mentions going to court and stating logical facts of experience,sorry buddy doesn’t work wouldn’t get that far.You plead ‘Guilty’ or go to the High court and spend thousands for a £60 fine…you won’t and I didn’t.
I have ended up on my ■■■ from rope hooks breaking, but I have also ended up on the same ■■■ for straps and chains breaking, too. I have used ropes on all types of loads and it has always stayed put. In fact I have broken more of the 4" straps than I have broken ropes, but I always kept an eye on my ropes and wouldn’t rely on it if it was frayed, and I put a lot more force into the straps courtesy of a 3’ bar and my 205(ish) lbs.
All those countless millions of miles travelled with loads secure by rope and sheet seem to count for nothing, it appears. So many of us who have driven flats for years without any major issues obviously know nothing. All because some office wallah within H&S had a rope swing break because his ■■■■ was too heavy so all ropes are unsafe. It is stupid, ■■■■ and retarded- end of story.
While they may get a little petty here at times (if your load weighs 45000 lbs then it has to have at least 8 and preferably 10 5500lb straps holding it on, i.e., the weight of the load securement tolerance must at least equal the load weight…) everything is standardised. A 4" strap is rated to 5500lbs. That is the industry standard and that is what you have on board. But it has been that way for years and years, and they don’t throw nonsense changes in law at you like this too often.
Personally, I like ropes. They do what they have to do and you can always use more if you need to. You can join them easily so you have ropes long enough to longrope straw and hay, and you can always use the snapped off bits as extensions for the last little bit. Straps may be easier to get tight but they are only marginally stronger, heavier, more expensive… simply less convenient and not really any safer.
stopped us using rope and corner boards on bricks and such like now. all loads must be strapped.
bobthedog:
I have ended up on my ■■■ from rope hooks breaking, but I have also ended up on the same ■■■ for straps and chains breaking, too. I have used ropes on all types of loads and it has always stayed put. In fact I have broken more of the 4" straps than I have broken ropes, but I always kept an eye on my ropes and wouldn’t rely on it if it was frayed, and I put a lot more force into the straps courtesy of a 3’ bar and my 205(ish) lbs.
All those countless millions of miles travelled with loads secure by rope and sheet seem to count for nothing, it appears. So many of us who have driven flats for years without any major issues obviously know nothing. All because some office wallah within H&S had a rope swing break because his ■■■■ was too heavy so all ropes are unsafe. It is stupid, ■■■■ and retarded- end of story.While they may get a little petty here at times (if your load weighs 45000 lbs then it has to have at least 8 and preferably 10 5500lb straps holding it on, i.e., the weight of the load securement tolerance must at least equal the load weight…) everything is standardised. A 4" strap is rated to 5500lbs. That is the industry standard and that is what you have on board. But it has been that way for years and years, and they don’t throw nonsense changes in law at you like this too often.
Personally, I like ropes. They do what they have to do and you can always use more if you need to. You can join them easily so you have ropes long enough to longrope straw and hay, and you can always use the snapped off bits as extensions for the last little bit. Straps may be easier to get tight but they are only marginally stronger, heavier, more expensive… simply less convenient and not really any safer.
i used to love roping an sheeting , especially when driving down the road and it looked as good as a tautliner. took a lot of pride in that part of the job and wouldn’t mind doing a bit again. alas another “driver skill” seems to be on the way out very few can do a proper job nowdays
all most of us are is steering wheel attendants according to the superior traffic (i know it all) bods
There’s something very satisfying about doing a dolly knot, I used to enjoy double dollies, especially when you made a spreader from them to get around a missing hook (probably one that BTD broke off 
) I even used to use rope inside a curtainsider, when I carted Holsten Pils around it was horrible stuff to keep still, they stacked the crates in towers rather than interlock them, so it was very wobbly, we had moving bulkheads so we could load part loads off the headboard, but the back was always a problem, if the back two pallets went the ones in front did too, 4plts is 5184 bottles, that doesn’t half make a mess, even if they’re empties, even using 6 straps (4 crossed & 2 straight over the sides of the pallets) they still moved, 20’ of rope & they didn’t move an inch, I never managed to crack a crate with a strap, but sliced many in two with a rope, mind you a fat barststeward like me hanging off a double dolly could cut through sheet steel 
So how is all this vosa crack down going to work when you have load that is too fragile to take a strap.
We do a lot of work for an electronic company that supplies the construction industry with control panels , basically these panels are tall narrow TIN cabinets full of electronics and usually worth a fortune but weighing hardly anything , now if I fling a strap over one of these things it would certainly buckle it.
I secure these panels using rope, sheet , skin(depending on how bad the weather is)and then rope again, so WTF am I meant to do now , tell our customer they need to redesign their panels or maybe spend a fortune on crates just because mr vosa man has sussed out another way of bending me over , I dont ■■■■■■ think so!!
The crack down recently with vosa has never really bothered me because the job I do means I’m never near max hours and my truck is well maintained but this carry on with roping and sheeting really is extracting the urine 
Just have to hope this nonsence stays narf of the border, I’ve seen no end of blokes heading sarf from Cheshire with fert on roped & sheeted as is the norm, long may it continue. Let VOSA stick to pulling them toe-rags from across the channel with their air-leaks & magnets 
Fly sheet
can’t believe how many think it’s ok to strap off of rope hooks, we run about ten hired in flatbeds as well as our own, have a look at them and see how few hooks are left on them? it’s a good idication that they’re not made for the purpose but you’ve got to ask the question why would anyone NOT strap off the chasis?
I hate to say it but if you do regular flatbed work one of the first things you learn is that the rope hooks are for rope and nothing else!
fair point somebody has made about straps being no good for some palletised loads, we do a fair bit for hepworths, packs of clay pipe but all the plastic fittings come on shrink wrapped pallets, no good using a ■■■■■■■■ them as theres nothing to tighten down to, rope is the only answer, i guess the only other option would be a brick net.