OVLOV JAY:
I am so glad I’m off the curtains. It really is ridiculous. It’s getting as bad as Germany now. Do they not realise that strapping some loads can do more harm than good. I took a cobelfret trailer to the new river island dc at Milton Keynes a couple of years ago. It had 2 flat pack conveyor belts inside. The whole trailer went 9 tonnes. It had 18 5 tonne straps lashing all the ally frames to the floor. Both frames were a write off. The contractors were not impressed. It’s about time load bearing curtains were made standard. Then just go back to strapping the back palletts
Best post so far.
In my opinion, i think we either do this properly like the germans, i.e proper trailers with lots of hooks for straps, side boards, rubber mats etc or we go back to how it was, not this half hearted atempt where all people are doing now is using a few extra internal straps.
In response to the OP, no i wouldnt of bothered strapping it, just the last row. Where i work you’d more than likely get sacked for refusing to take a load.
^^ This
I mean, come on, where the hell they going to go, how they going to go through a curtain? It’s bloody cornflakes for gods sake.
If he was permanent, he’d be in for a ‘chat’, if he was agency, it’d be the last time he came in. Hope the football was worth it.
I’ve posted before, but there’s a place that does toilet rolls near the reebok, and they insist you cross strap every 3rd row of pallets of toilet roll. They are wedged in at either side causing a slight buldge in the curtains and rammed in from the back doors (ooh err) to get the last pallets in, so literally no room to move and no weight…
Also, when you do x-strap every 3rd row, you can’t tighten the x-strapping because it may prevent the last ones coming in from the back and you’d then have to undo them all
They told me it’s because they had a trailer go over, so now insist on it…
Where I am now is the exact opposite, no straps at all, I finish Friday.
those toilet rolls do move, and it’s a pain in the arse if they arn’t strapped right. the pallets are much bigger than the load, therefore there is an 8" gap between each stack.
they don’t realise that the correct stacking of each pallet would make a huge difference, but they could save a lot of money by buying the correct size pallets.
management.
Been told off already for trying to “secure” pallet’s of aluminium sections with straps. Even not tightened as they would damage the product. They didn’t know about this vosa thing and suggested I was dragging the job out
Spose I could ask the boss for a statement on company headed paper saying no straps to used etc but doubt it would help…
OVLOV JAY:
It had 2 flat pack conveyor belts inside. The whole trailer went 9 tonnes. It had 18 5 tonne straps lashing all the ally frames to the floor. Both frames were a write off. The contractors were not impressed.
Is that the fault of the straps, or the person that secured the frames
Neither, it’s the fault of the German authorities who insist on everything being ratchetted to within an inch of its life. Before you know it, ally will have to be in wooden crates, to avoid damage
I did a load out of Ardagh Glass several years ago and they were going through H&S issues, every row had to be strapped, but you cannot strap over the packs of jars as they are for food products, for coffee, and the customer will not accept them. CSL however made us do it, but instead of strapping over, we had to strap around each pair of pallets, actually 4 pallets per row.
They load 4 pallets at a time through each side, yet the customer in France unloads 2 at a time through the back doors. The customer is bigger than Ardagh and soon had this practice stopped. A driver dropped the trailer on the bay and they couldn’t tip it
I can remember my dad having a curtain sider when they first came out, he used to deliver double decked glass, no straps but a couple of boards under the last edge of the last pallet so they were leaning towards the front of the truck. People seem to forget that your driving style changes in relation to what you have on and on how its loaded. If you loaded it and you shoot the load then its your own daft fault you know how you loaded it. As for the load in question use some common sense, last 2 straps on the back.
OVLOV JAY:
Do they not realise that strapping some loads can do more harm than good.
This is correct - but a load that isn’t restrained can do a lot of harm to itself, the vehicle or worse. if the product is ‘fragile’ it should be packed in some kind of stillage or frame that can then be restrained properly.
I was at a furniture manufacturers last week where they make school desks and that sort of thing. these are loaded into box ‘drop/demountable’ bodies and the drivers come in and pick them up. For years they have been loading the ‘containers’ this way - the loaders don’t secure anything (how can it fall out of a box?) - the drivers can’t secure it once it is loaded.
First thing the drivers complained to me about was the amount of damaged product when they got to where they were going and unloaded it. Apparently they bring ‘a large amount’ of damaged and broken desks and chairs etc back each trip.
I suggested try restraining the load as they load it - apparently the MD says this will take too long and they should just drive more carefully. They actually blame the drivers for the damage An extra hour in loading time would probably increase the profit margin dramatically judging by the pile of returned items I saw in the skip.
of course the potential big problem is a load shift inside the box that causes roll-over …
OVLOV JAY:
It’s about time load bearing curtains were made standard. Then just go back to strapping the back palletts
Load bearing curtains are great until the load inside shifts due to braking, sudden direction change or unexpected incident - all falls against the curtain which does a lovely job of holding it and the trailer/vehicle goes over instead.
Fileep:
People seem to forget that your driving style changes in relation to what you have on and on how its loaded. If you loaded it and you shoot the load then its your own daft fault you know how you loaded it.
classic drivers comment
that’s all fine and well if you’re driving on a closed road all by yourself, but the majority of us drive with others and some of these others every now and then does something stupid, that no matter how defensive you’re driving will call for evasive action.
of course you drive accordingly, but every load should stop on if evasive action is needed.
as for the cornflakes, i’d of took it, but i wouldn’t have a go at someone who wanted to do it by the book. i don’t drive trucks at the mo so haven’t read up, but by the looks of reading on here, vosa want everything strapping, so strapping it is.
Fileep:
People seem to forget that your driving style changes in relation to what you have on and on how its loaded. If you loaded it and you shoot the load then its your own daft fault you know how you loaded it.
classic drivers comment
that’s all fine and well if you’re driving on a closed road all by yourself, but the majority of us drive with others and some of these others every now and then does something stupid, that no matter how defensive you’re driving will call for evasive action.
of course you drive accordingly, but every load should stop on if evasive action is needed.
as for the cornflakes, i’d of took it, but i wouldn’t have a go at someone who wanted to do it by the book. i don’t drive trucks at the mo so haven’t read up, but by the looks of reading on here, vosa want everything strapping, so strapping it is.
You load it and secure it properly so if you stand on the brakes it doesnt move was my point! The cornflakes arnt going anywhere. If you fail to secure it properly and shoot the load then its your own fault. What dont you get?
Scenario 1
52 pallets of shrinkwrapped Crunchie Nut Cornflakes.
Answer: A variety of materials are suitable for restraining palletised loads. These include chains, steel
wire or fibre rope, webbing lashings and webbing or rope nets.
Problem: HSE will not allow a driver to climb on his trailer, how can he cover it with a net?
Answer: Rope or webbing nets are suitable both for securing the cargo to the pallet and for securing
the palletised load to the vehicle.
Empty pallets should be restrained and secured to the vehicle. This applies even if carried on a
vehicle where the height of the head, side and end boards come above the height of the empty
pallets because the wind can easily blow them out of the vehicle. (Only in the world of H&S make believe)
Shrinkwrap, Signode metal and plastic strapping has been used quite successfully for many years, according to the recent publications these are almost obsolete.
I remember having to use and try to avoid tilt trailers with gates. The load was secure but the driver was more likely to end up in hospital after one fell on his head, imagine the crap these days if a steel gate slipped onto little Tommy in the yard!
Own Account Driver:
If VOSA reckon curtains provide no load restraint how come so many curtainside rollovers get righted by recovery with the load still all onboard.
The majority don’t, the curtains usually rip out. Either the weight of the load pulls the curtain out before it hits the deck, or the curtain sliding along the tarmac with the full weight of the load on it usually knacks it.
When we do lift them loaded, it’s because we take the painstaking route of getting as many strops under the trailer as we can. It’s not easy doing that. With the strops in place, we rig them all up with wire ropes and floating snatchblocks, so when we lift the trailer, there’s an even pressure on all the strops. The strops then act as the load restraint rather than the curtain. The curtain can contain the weight of the load between multiple strops, but not between just 2 strops .
That way, the strops are holding the load every 3 foot or so. If you just try to right the trailer the way we’d right a container, pulling at the corners, the curtain would break away and the load would be left on the ground.
It’s hard work getting strops under the trailer where you want them, trying to make a gap between curtain and tarmac when all the load is sitting on the curtain, but it’s even harder work handballing 26 tons of load off the tarmac and back onto the trailer.
Yep,I’d have took it and as for vosa,what do they know about strapping loads?
Look at all the hassle drivers and companies have been having with vosa over loads of fertiliser which they’ve been carrying for years with ropes and sheets and for the past few years as I understand it,vosa won’t straps using and now they keep getting split bags.
Why doesn’t vosa as well as the government consult with the industry before bringing these rules in?
Bang goes me coming out of coke cola now with 26plts on and held by the back 2 straps,■■■■■■■■■■■
jase:
Why doesn’t vosa as well as the government consult with the industry before bringing these rules in?Bang goes me coming out of coke cola now with 26plts on and held by the back 2 straps,[zb]!!!
at kelloggs when I used to work there you can’t even strap the back two pallets as it’s on chains and air similar to a roller bed/ walking floor! On the road with a curtainsider the back two will suffice! At sca trafford park 52 pallets of bog rolls back two no probs! Unless your from Stoke depot they shoot them! because they don’t use any straps!
Maybe VOSA want to be where the Germans are at with load security!
Non slip mats in reefers,ratchet straps over every pallet! And fines issued to drivers and suppliers if not secured properly!
Easy money here in the UK I would say!
Boss & Driver:
I would guess he got 36 pallets on the floor and the remainders would be on second level or on top and could move around if unsecured
but what weight are we talking per pallet?
You are neither a boss or a driver are you?
I have mixed feelings on this subject (load securement, not imitation lorry drivers ) I think that things are getting out of hand and that there are far too many rules and regulations that exist only because somebody has a job making up rules and regulations
I the past I’ve moved many products inside curtainsiders without a strap in sight, I’ve also had loads that require lots of straps, the same on flatbeds, some stuff needs chains and/or straps, some stuff only needed roping, sometimes using every hook, sometimes just thrown over to keep the sheets tight (not the flysheet of course ) I’ve moved 25ton coils in a coil well with only a sheet and gravity holding them on, every situation and every load is different. Cornflakes in my opinion do not need strapping, except maybe crossed at the back just in case I’d drag raced away once too often, but as things stand now, if the rules say that every pallet must be strapped, then every pallet would get strapped, now matter how silly I think that is personally and while I was poncing about strapping up, the clock would be ticking and the wages would be going up
chester:
Lad at work had a bit of a drama, he was told to take fully loaded double stacked trailer which only had two internal straps around the rear pallets!
He was unable to use more straps has all the rest of the internal straps were tucked behind the headboard and trapped by the double stacked load.
His reasoning was the clampdown of VOSA and unsecure loads, and it was his license. Was he right?
He didnt take it out in the end and got an early knock off, traffic office dont seem to bothered about it as another driver took it out.
So thats 52 pallets and two internal straps over to you guys what would you do?
it amazes me how vosa makes a big deal out of something of nothing like strapping cornflakes and nothing is done about the main danger of lgv driving,namely working 15 hour days and driving half asleep,9 hours off then doing the same again in a 44 tonne vehicle on the same roads as idiots driving cars a third of a tonne with no road sense.i got out of the job but even now remember driving like a zombie trying to wake up on red bull.
cut all drivers down to 40 hours a week then the roads will be a safer place and more jobs will become available,simples !!!
because they don’t use any straps! 
