I drove for Maverick.If we threw the straps,hook first,we would get fired.Always throw the strap from the side of the trailer to where the hook is going to hook to the trailer.Never know when someone might walk along the side of the trailer.Throw the hook first and you can hit someone in the head.

its not the tarpping/strapping thats a pain...its having to roll those tarps when its in the lower digits thats the pain.

I just go ahead and shut my fingers in the truck door...makes tarping seem like breaktime.

Tarping sucks. Unloading a 53 foot van sucks much more.

OK, sometimes tarping don't suck so much. Like on a nice day out in the sun and you dont have to hurry cause you are out of hours anyway.

it's like any job ,it;s all in what you make of it. when i 1st started to do flat bed it would take me sometimes 3 to 5 hours to strap and tarp and now any where from 1/2 hr. to 1 1/2 depending what it is,find your own technic, lumber tarping used to be a pain but now it's a breeze most times. I just started pulling the strapes off the unwinders when i'm not using them because it's a pain getting them unwound when they are frozen.

THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE
 

I just finished my second week as a road driver with a flatbed company. As a new rookie driver it takes me sometimes 2hrs. to properly strap and tarp a load. I thought that I was the only trucker who took hrs. to secure a load. It gives me comfort after reading and finding out that this could be normal for rookie drivers. :wink:

Re: THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE
 

Re: Is tarping/chaining/strapping a pain in the...?
 

Okay. Pulling a dryvan or reefer is simply, load the load so that your asle weights are good and the load won't slide against the front bulkhead, of in the case of rolls of paper, so that they can not move forward and pop out the rivets along the bottom sides of the trailer. May sound like a lot if you're a newbe, but it's actually fairly simple.

With a flatbed, you have far more responsibility. First of all, you have to load the load so that your axle weights are legal. (I've known more than one guy to have spent several hours behind the state scale house, moving bundles of shingles in order to get that part right) You must be able to secure your load so that you won't lose any part of it. A company I worked for was sued because the driver did not properly secure pallets of shingles, and when going down the road, one of the bundles came off, went through the windshield of a car and killed someone inside. They were sued for WRONGFUL DEATH. Another company I worked for was going to send a young kid with a step to pick up a wrecked tractor. When he asked me how a chain-binder works, I decided I'd better go with him. We got it loaded, and he was ready to drive off. I stopped him. I climbed on top and measured down. OVER-HEIGHT". We let the air out of the tires and measured again.. This time, it measured exactly 13' 6". He discovered that, not only would he not have known how to load it, or secure it, but would have certainly hit an overpass with it. The way he would have secured it, it would have most likely rolled off the truck at the first turn.

In Indianapolis, some years ago, a new driver lost a 30 ton bulldozer around the northeast area of the circle. When it rolled off the truck, it landed on a car and killed the two people inside.

It's not like looking at a chart and saying "It has to be loaded this way". Different loads have different ways they have to be secured. It takes a bit of savvy, and it's not somthing you learn over-night.

Then, there's tarping. You can have a nice smooth load, sort of like putting a tarp over a greyhound bus. Do it wrong, and you'll be standing on the side of the road, re-tarping your load. ALWAYS start at the back and tarp toward the front, so that with you lay one tarp on top of another, the leading edge is under another tarp and the wind can't catch the leading edge. Sharp edges will cause the tarp to be nearly useless. If you don't pad sharp corners properly, you'll soon have more patches than tarp. And, if you think this is a "BALL-BUSTER", wait till you have the chance to roll up your tarps in a 30 or 40 mph wind. Then, add 30 degrees F below zero.

Any driver can drive a truck, but it takes a special breed of driver to be able to run a flatbed. And, once you know about all the work involved in securing a load, hanging iron on your tires is a piece of cake.

excellent summary windwalker !

flatbed is only as hard as one makes it to be. tarping, does not have to be a chore like everyone makes it. Securement, while important. can be fun, much like a puzzle. and satisfying when it all comes together.

yeah the cold weather here in wyoming, montana, idaho can be a pain in the behind, but we deal with it, and let the hour or so of hard work keep us warm. proper clothing is the difference. we had minus 30 F temps here last week and record snowfall for this area still tarping and untarping and securing loads through it all. but i remember back in my van driving days sitting at the warehouse docks for hours on end to load or unload. and myself i would much rather be tarping, strapping and securing, than waiting on lumpers and rude dock personel anyday.