Fasten your load to your trailer!

   / Fasten your load to your trailer! #1  

blueriver

Super Member
Joined
Oct 4, 2007
Messages
5,025
Location
S.E.Oklahoma
Tractor
JD 5520 Montana 4340 Farmall Super A Montana 5720C
Sunday was cool and rainy so I spent the day viewing TBN, got real interested in a post about hauling tractors/equipment and the fact that alot of people are careless about fastening the equipment to the trailer.

This morning I had to go to town, and quess what??? Right past the stop light in town is a vehicle with a bumper pull trailer, a small tractor and brush hog, when he applied the brakes ... over the front rail of the trailer and come to stop on the trailer tongue.

He had two ratchet straps holding the load, fortunaltly no damage and no injuries!

I don't think we can be to careful, ratchet straps and or chains and binders and we need to make sure they are in the right position and fastened correcttly and tight.
 

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   / Fasten your load to your trailer! #2  
When I was living in Charleston, SC about 12 years ago a woman was killed when an industrial TLB fell off its trailer onto her car. This occured in heavy traffic on a major bridge. The towing vehicle was a dump truck and it apparently had to swerve to avoid something and off came the TLB. It was determined that the TLB was not secured......by anything! No chains. No nothing.

Well, it was a big deal in the local news and there was a lot of talk about trailer safety etc.

That same week we were driving somewhere and my wife pointed at a tandem wheel dump truck pulling a big TLB and she said it was unsecured. Of course I told her she was crazy and that we just couldn't see the chains. I pulled up alongside to show her how it was attached and sure enough...nothing. Just sitting on the trailer. Some folks never get it.
 
   / Fasten your load to your trailer! #3  
Ever since I saw it suggested here at TBN I have used grade 70 chains and load binders to secure just about everything I move.
 
   / Fasten your load to your trailer! #4  
I don't know if SC is worse than everywhere else but I see a LOT of trailers running around with improperly secured loads, no safety chains and/or no working lights. Sadly the law enforcement community seems to ignore all that......:cool:
 
   / Fasten your load to your trailer! #5  
They ignore it unless the driver has to have a CDL, then they get picky as can be. I see people hauling trailers full of lawnmowers without a chain in sight. All fine and dandy till they hit something or get run off the road.
David from jax
 
   / Fasten your load to your trailer! #6  
I'd have to disagree in SC. The so called "Transport Police" here are a joke. I have a weigh station near my house over on I-20 and it isn't even open 9 out of 10 times I pass by. I make about 50 or so 140 mile round trips to Augusta Ga a year and have for about 5 years. I bet in 5 years I haven't seen 3 trucks stopped, even though the empty tankers going to the oil terminal in North Augusta run 85-90+ on the downhills...actually I haven't seen all that many cars stopped by our State Troopers either:confused: BTW that weigh station on I-20 has frontage roads on both sides around it and truck traffic is heavy on them when it is open...obviously been tipped off on the CB so they go around...have never in 25 years in my home seen one stopped for diverting around, I don't know why we even have SC Transport Police for what little I see of them.....so if they aren't stopping the speeders or the overweights I'm pretty sure they aren't looking at tiedowns either...
 
   / Fasten your load to your trailer! #7  
That picture is worth a thousand words. :eek:
 
   / Fasten your load to your trailer! #8  
Skyco said:
I'd have to disagree in SC. The so called "Transport Police" here are a joke.

Yeah, I'd have to agree with that. I see scary trailering almost every day. About a month ago, I saw a truck pulling a 12' single axle trailer and I was making fun of the fact that he was using safety ropes instead of safety chains - that is until I realized the truck didn't even have a hitch and the tongue of the trailer was basically suspended by a lashing to the rear bumper!! I couldn't believe it...
 
   / Fasten your load to your trailer! #9  
Maybe this is a good place and time to ask, "How many chains and binders do you use to secure your rig?"
 
 
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