Fasten your load to your trailer!

[blueriver]

Now those two pictures are better than the one I opened this discussion with!

I agree that the truck beds should have better tie down arrangements. I have taken a closer look at loading since this discusion and I always felt that I was comfortable with what I was doing.

Imagine it only takes one accident and chances are everything can be gone! Just how much liability insurance is enough?

 

[Rara Avis]

Trailer?...We don't need no stinkin' trailer?

(Apologies to The Treasure of Sierra Madres...
Gold Hat: Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges.)

You might be an idiot, if haul like this?...(see picture)

 

[hosejockey2002]

One of my pet peeves, is on most trucks available for a number of years, is lack of tie downs from the factory. If you go out right now, and buy a $40k 3/4 ton diesel 4x4 super heavy duty pickup, they a couple wimpy little tie down at the lower inner corner of the beds. Sure there are lots of aftermarket stuff available. But, for $30,40, 50k, there should be something better...

Very true. I suppose that's because 90% of truck users never actually haul anything in their truck that requires tying down.

As a sidebar, way back when my dad had a 1969 Datsun pickup. It was not the prettiest thing in the world, but it had three or four stout tiedown hooks built into the outside edge of the bed rail. Back then people bought pickups to haul things, and that's what they were built to do. Today most people buy then either to tow big trailers or they just want a big flashy rig (maybe to compensate for something ) and they rarely haul anything in the bed

 

[RobertN]

they just want a big flashy rig (maybe to compensate for something ) and they rarely haul anything in the bed

See, that's why I want a mid-late 1950's American Lafrance

 

[N80]

As a sidebar, way back when my dad had a 1969 Datsun pickup. It was not the prettiest thing in the world, but it had three or four stout tiedown hooks built into the outside edge of the bed rail.

My '84 Nissan/Datsun had the same thing. Three big tie downs on each side, each one held on with 2 sturdy bolts. I did not like them on the outside but you could mount them on the inside just as easily and I did. They were great.

My '03 F-150, which is a fine truck, has one flimsy little tie down low in each corner of the bed. Almost worthless. What a joke.

The Nissan Titans have a very robust looking system of tracks and tie downs that looks fantastic, but I have no experience with the system so I don't know if it is all its cracked up to be. At least Nissan made the effort and acknowledge that sometimes people actual put stuff in the bed of the truck.

 

[WTA]

I had a big round bale fall off a truck in front of me once. I was driving a big ford tractor with a bulldozer on the beavertail behind me and going down a mountain so braking wasn't much of an option. I was maybe 200 feet behind that guy when it came off and pucker factor was very high believe me. I swerved into the breakdown lane and just barely clipped the side of it with my trailer.

Another time in the Army, I had a crazy female driver in training in a truck in front of me going through city traffic with a tanker truck. It was an old army 818 and a half full fuel tanker with no baffles. Those old trucks had air over hydraulic brakes and would lock up real hard when you stepped on it. She braked for a yellow instead of hitting the gas and thank god I had water in her tank. That water sloshed forward and broke the king pin right out of her fifth wheel and slammed her tractor right through the intersection.

Teaching her to drive that thing down mountains a couple months later was even more interesting.

I'm so glad I don't drive big trucks anymore.

 

[Rara Avis]

See, that's why I want a mid-late 1950's American Lafrance

Too bad you are so far away, I'd sell you my 1947 Open Cab American-LaFrance...

 

[Redbug]

I was on I-77 today going through Columbia, and had an F250 up ahead of me towing one of those mini-trackhoes on a 20 foot or so trailer. 70 mph or so. As I got a little closer admiring the hoe, I noticed it was not chained or even strapped to the trailer! NOTHING was holding it on the trailer but it's parking brake! Boy, what a scare I got! I sped up and got ahead of the rig. I had never seen anything like that before! That took the cake! Boy, what a lawsuit that would make after a few innocent lives got squashed from someone else's stupidity.

I did not have my camera. I got off the interstate just a few miles ahead. If I were on for longer I would have called 911 and reported him.

Just thinking about it some more...I should have called it in anyway! All part of the learning curve...

 

[rtdiggr]

A couple of more pics for your Tuesday night entertainment Shane

 

[horse7]

One of my pet peeves, is on most trucks available for a number of years, is lack of tie downs from the factory. If you go out right now, and buy a $40k 3/4 ton diesel 4x4 super heavy duty pickup, they a couple wimpy little tie down at the lower inner corner of the beds. Sure there are lots of aftermarket stuff available. But, for $30,40, 50k, there should be something better...

I have seen some loads, in trucks, on trailers, where I let them get way ahead of me, or I passed them, because I did not want whatever they were hauling to fall off in front of me.

The OE tiedowns, while not particularly strong, have been suitable for what I wanted them for-- mainly to avoid load shifting of fairly light objects (something top heavy, fairly massive, and large would be a problem, but then I would use something else for transport or hire someone). They can't be too strong, the beds on modern pickups aren't all that strong-- put in a super strong looking tie points and some wanker would use grade 70 ratchet chains and complain about how the bed bent up. Well, make the bed stronger and heavier, but that costs more, and hardly anyone is willing to pay for it, not to speak of missing CAFE by a wider margin. You want good tiedown points, put on a nice flat bed, at which point you'll need good strong tie downs since there isn't a box to retain things.

I had a friend once, had a story-- he was driving in heavy traffic on I95 (or NJP, as the case may be) near NYC, the cap on a PU in front of him did a Wizard of Oz-- cap flew up and he saw it sailing towards him like a giant ersatz Frisbee but the traffic was too heavy to dodge the bullet. Bent up his hood and broke the windshield but he wasn't injured. PU kept on going, probably hoping no one got his plates (pretty hard to miss a cap blowing off, suddenly the rear view mirror works!).

The other 2 guys I might have known, did not survive the equivalent experience so I never met them.