Has anyone come across any problems ie: fines? For not strapping loads correctly at road side checks? Or do they just advise? Has the law changed?
As far as I know the law hasn’t changed, it’s still a legal requirement to secure your load.
I’ve come across a few bits of MMTM.
With a bit of luck, someone high up in VOSA will have come to their senses, realised what a dogs breakfast the over-zealous interpretation of the rules will cause, and has got hold of the bloke who proposed it and given him a dirty great slap round the back of the head with a pair of wet rigger gloves.
But we don’t get that kind of luck often.
Unless you have loadbearing curtains and get into the math regarding friction coefficient and load retention, treat a curtainsider as a flatbed, the curtains are only there to keep the load dry, not to keep it in the vehicle.
We strap each and every item in our curtainsiders. This has nothing to do with VOSA, this is pure common sense, do you want your load to shift and exit the curtain to kill some innocent passer by?
Even if VOSA had no say in it and would never fine, you still would strap your load wouldn’t you?
OWLDRIVER:
Has the law changed?
The law has never changed, it has always been a requirement to strap your load in a curtainsider. VOSA has identified a particular problem with curtainsiders and as of April 2012 is focusing more on the load security then they did before, they published a matrix showing you how they judge the severity of unsecure loads. Have a search on google for “vosa load matrix”, loads will show up.
wheelnutt:
OWLDRIVER:
Has the law changed?The law has never changed, it has always been a requirement to strap your load in a curtainsider
the word is RESTRAIN not strap
nick2008:
wheelnutt:
OWLDRIVER:
Has the law changed?The law has never changed, it has always been a requirement to strap your load in a curtainsider
the word is RESTRAIN not strap
99% of loads in a curtainsider will be strapped, no need to be a pedant.
we’ve got around the problem at our depot…we have gone over to box trailers! 
I was just saying boxes would be the way ahead, when u carry biscuits, coke, or tinned pet food, ratchet straps can damage the load. & customers don’t like it?
Last year, our double deckers with load bearing curtains, and internal straps would go out with no other restraints. Load would consist of plastic pipes and drains mostly.
This year, they have a strapping team to put straps over both decks on each DD as soon as it is loaded.
The average payload weight is 8 tons.
Our single deck trailers and rigids have internal racking for pipe support. They haven’t figured out how this stands legally. As technically the load doesn’t sit on the bed. So they still go out with load curtains and internal straps.
As we all know every night DD go into Pallet Hub’s up & down the country with pallets of all shapes & sizes, only restrained by a thin curtain side…they can be carrying anything from vehicle engines to barrels of cooking oil, VOSA is still taking an advisory stand on this? Or turn a blind eye? It’s all abit grey, I know in Germany everything is sat on Anti slip mats…
OWLDRIVER:
As we all know every night DD go into Pallet Hub’s up & down the country with pallets of all shapes & sizes, only restrained by a thin curtain side…they can be carrying anything from vehicle engines to barrels of cooking oil, VOSA is still taking an advisory stand on this? Or turn a blind eye? It’s all abit grey, I know in Germany everything is sat on Anti slip mats…
We do pallet hub work in DD’s and all of ours are fully strapped in, our top decks have rails inside the curtain for both floors with high rated straps clearly marked, higher weight pallets get more straps, we also have load restraint for the lower deck, and all of ours carry seperate ratchet straps when needed. During the day we run several rigids delivering and again all are strapped. In our company you don’t just have to worry about VOSA, you have to worry about your job if you don’t strap a load.
VOSA are not turning a blind eye, far from it, it is one of their main focus points this year. One of the pallet hubs we run from is right around the corner from a Vosa centre and we got pulled several times last summer, all were strapped, now they just let us be and are pulling in the other guys.
i,m on a job this week delivering teabags and backloading cornflakes, i dont strap any of it , well except the top 2 at the back to stop them walking backwards
I am pleased these days I drive a reefer 
Every load should be secure. We shouldn’t need vosa to tell us this.
As said curtains there to keep the weather out did this on Cpc yesterday all loads to be strapped down.
One of the lads on the course his mate got stopped by vosa routine check with a curtain sider had 26 pallets of bricks on not strapped down and vosa did him £200 a strap 13 straps £2600.
Serves him right not strapping bricks down curtains not going to stop those if you swerve or brake suddenly.
Jeff.
limeyphil:
Every load should be secure. We shouldn’t need vosa to tell us this.
+1
nick2008:
limeyphil:
Every load should be secure. We shouldn’t need vosa to tell us this.+1
But we also dont need Vosa to tell us when common sense says a load doesnt need strapping ie. bog rolls, crisps etc
wheelnutt:
OWLDRIVER:
As we all know every night DD go into Pallet Hub’s up & down the country with pallets of all shapes & sizes, only restrained by a thin curtain side…they can be carrying anything from vehicle engines to barrels of cooking oil, VOSA is still taking an advisory stand on this? Or turn a blind eye? It’s all abit grey, I know in Germany everything is sat on Anti slip mats…We do pallet hub work in DD’s and all of ours are fully strapped in, our top decks have rails inside the curtain for both floors with high rated straps clearly marked, higher weight pallets get more straps, we also have load restraint for the lower deck, and all of ours carry seperate ratchet straps when needed. During the day we run several rigids delivering and again all are strapped. In our company you don’t just have to worry about VOSA, you have to worry about your job if you don’t strap a load.
VOSA are not turning a blind eye, far from it, it is one of their main focus points this year. One of the pallet hubs we run from is right around the corner from a Vosa centre and we got pulled several times last summer, all were strapped, now they just let us be and are pulling in the other guys.
what it is
rails inside the cartain and loadbearing curtains■■?
chaversdad:
nick2008:
limeyphil:
Every load should be secure. We shouldn’t need vosa to tell us this.+1
But we also dont need Vosa to tell us when common sense says a load doesnt need strapping ie. bog rolls, crisps etc
Bog roll and crisps are secured, I’ll criss cross every second stack (8 pallets).