NW Motorway Police
Stopped today by the Regional Commercial Vehicle Unit at Switch Island
Driver carrying over 20 tonnes of glass bottles secured only with internal straps with no XL side curtains fitted.
Driver reported and load made safe before onward journey.
The fact that he is near the end of his journey and everything is upright and in place would suggest that it is secure, however I would have bunged ratchets over it to keep plod happy.
20 tonnes??
I’m surprised they didn’t use the phrase "killer juggernaut "…
made Safe ? What a joke , so a ratchet over glass suddenly makes it safe , how can anything be improved other than to put the bottles in wooden crates and ratchet up tight .the plod are an utter joke .
problem with ratchets over those pallets is that when you tighten them the plastic banding comes loose and so do the bottles . all started when rockware did away with shrink wrapping caused a bit of a headache for us at salvesen years ago
tony
So no XL curtains…the XL curtains DVSA didn’t acknowledge for years? I was also under the impression that glass couldn’t be ratchet strapped when packed that way. Seem to remember a company being mentioned (XPO maybe) that drivers kept questioning using internals on some glass work they took on and the company made some noise to the glass plant. Coincidentally, they apparently no longer do that work.
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Be interested to see what they considered safe afterwards? As pointed out ratchets make it worse.
Think this is a classic case of wrong trailer type for load.
When I worked glass, XL were mandatory and we just used internals similar to that shown, except we put through pallets to pull them right against each other.
Probably got away fine with it if it had been the correct trailer.
Firm I’m at now have just started some trial runs of glass, funny enough from previous firm I worked for, I’ve already refused to take out non XL. Thing is by time it’s debated some other driver takes it despite explaining what will happen if the pallet collapses in transit
Saw the mess it creates inside an XL , very doubtful a normal curtain will stay, it’ll be ripped off in a heartbeat.
Thankfully only ever had one load go on me and that was still inside the yard. Leaving the warehouse simply hit a slight bump turning less that 5mph, next thing crash and half a side went!
Hated the ■■■■ stuff!
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The only…
Way to load this ‘safely’ is to put it in a box but we all know that’s never gonna happen because there’s a cost involved. It’s a numbers game innit, if they ship 1000 loads like this and ony 10 get stopped they’re up on the deal.
It’s called logistics.
Safe as houses as long as truck is driven sensibly and not by a ■■■■.
But we all know it’s got the far end of f. all to do with safe or unsafe, and everything to do with harassment and making money out of you…fact.
when all this ‘pressure pack’ malarky started at salvesen on the rockware contract we actually put a camera inside a trailer to study the glass in transit . and to get from brackmills to mortlake the drivers had to stick to the m1/m25/m4 route anybody caught using the north circular was in trouble especially if a load discharged itself over the road , (as it did on a few occasions)
The thing with bottles stacked like this is that you only need one bottle to shake itself loose and the whole side collapses like a house of cards.
robroy:
Safe as houses as long as truck is driven sensibly and not by a ■■■■.
Not strictly true…
This stuff will go with little or no provocation. I used to load these on nights (do 9 on a good night including roping them back through every other pallet and putting 4 cheps at the back of the load with three ratchets pulling them forwards) at Barnsley glass for WH Malcolms. There were several occaisions where just dropping the loaded trailer in the yard was enough to destroy a fully secured load. Drivers driving out of the yard have had the whole lot go. I had one go over a large bump on the road to Tadcaster brewery. Even the plastic shrunk wrapped pallets would drop. It’s inherently very unstable and a box is the only real way to move it.
Back then, Malcolms yard usually had several trailers a month parked up with bulged out curtains waiting to go to a recovery place to be dumped or what ever they did there.
Used to do those, can shoot the whole load at the drop of a hat. Worst was going over a speed jump AT DELIVERY, heard a tinkle and watched as the whole load filed the curtains. Most likely from Encirc Elton. Ridiculous way to send out loads imo
dcgpx:
Saw the mess it creates inside an XL , very doubtful a normal curtain will stay, it’ll be ripped off in a heartbeat.
Not at all. Did them before XL’s were common and we had shot loads in a variety of makes of trailers, though mostly SDC, and none of them came through curtains
I used to do 100’s of these loads out of Rockware in the 90’s and I hated them. Yes if a bottle fell out then very quickly the pallet would collapse. Putting a ratchet ■■■■■■■■ would do nothing, but the powers that be say everything got to be strapped. I got nicked at wooley services last night for stopping on the hard shoulder on the slip road for about the minute and the lovely policeman 
was more interested how the load was strapped and he was most disappointed when I told him they were xl and each pallet was strapped down. So the banker could only give me a £60 fine.
Harry Monk:
The thing with bottles stacked like this is that you only need one bottle to shake itself loose and the whole side collapses like a house of cards.
This
The problem (for us) is that when one of these loads is shot, it isn’t a total loss, it just becomes cullet and is eventually melted down and turned into new bottles. Obviously some bean counter somewhere has done the maths and calculated that the cost of doing this plus the extra handling is less than the cost would be of packing them properly in the first place.
as above ,
its not safe and never will be safe no matter how many ratchets you sling over them as you cant tighten the ratches without bursting the load and causing it to collapse easier so making a show of internals is all the driver has done.
however,for the rule book quoting beancounter looking to fulfill his earnings quota then its easy pickings and id be in no doubt that the load was not made secure other than by throwing straps over it which serve no purpose other than to comply with the written opinions of vostapo.
Ok hands up, never been one not to admit if I’m wrong, looks as if I am.
I can only talk by my own experiences,.the times I’ve had those loads on never had a problem, looks like I’ve just been fortunate.
The pallets are banded as well…so i dont think its a problem if driven sensibly…what it needs is a test case in a court…but we all know the law would be on the side of vosa…as if they know any better.
