Securing Dry Van Load - Question

Thanks Old School. Always interesting to learn new things.

When my dad worked at Con-way, one of the drivers from his terminal was killed when some steel rebarb went through the nose of his trailer and into the cab.

They also had some stuff come out the door, the walls will hold some stuff back but if it can get any momentum they may as well not even be there.

I’ve got to question how strong the walls are on a dry van. Was loading skidded aluminum coils the other day next to a dry van getting loaded with the same. I had friction mats, trip chains, straps, the whole nine yards. He just shut his doors and left. Will those walls actually stop a sliding coil?

Was years ago, but I hauled some big paper roles through the TN-NC I-40 corridor.. They Nailed boards as chalks in the floors to hold them.. They did not get one down very good and around a curve I felt it give and made a loud boom.. I slowed and stopped, and called my company who asked me to get on through the gorge with them and to just take it easy as possible.. Back in those days you did what you could.. I got through the curves and on to NC.. Both sides of the trailer was bowed out, when I got to customer.I have hauled ugly loads over the years.. And Secured many ways.. I never ran flat bed.. But that was the only time I ever had trouble running coils, rolls, of any kind.

Is there much difference between dry van and reefer on this topic?

We haul heavy unstable freight often at my company, like the tall paper rolls. They'll typically load 3 rolls staggered in the front of the trailer, leave a 15' or so gap and then load the other 3. The ONLY securement (and this is DOT approved) is that there is a thin rubber skid mat underneath each roll.

Needless to say, you want NO hard brakes, NO sudden lane changes, and it's company policy to take all ramps and turns at HALF the yellow advisory speed. So a 30 mph ramp at no faster than 15 mph, a 25mph ramp at no faster than 12 mph, etc. This is for good reason lol. So if you're ever behind a West Side Transport truck taking a ramp at 10 mph, you can be assured we aren't being buttheads, but simply taking the ramp without risk of losing a roll through the side of our trailer, or rolling the truck and blocking the whole ramp for many hours lol.

Seems as good a time as any to trot out this old joke... of course, G-town will probably never speak to me again!

Hey Dave, you mentioned not cranking things out so far as to blast out the trailer walls and I was wondering if you can elaborate on that?

Seems as good a time as any to trot out this old joke... of course, G-town will probably never speak to me again!

That’s one of the funnier Swift Follies I’ve seen...very good.

Seems as good a time as any to trot out this old joke... of course, G-town will probably never speak to me again!

That’s one of the funnier Swift Follies I’ve seen...very good.

Before I found this site, and learned how many trucks they have on the road, I believed those things

Yeah, typical dry van walls aren't very strong. Load bars are not used often, but if you need them for a specific situation you have to first pull the walls in some by ratcheting straps, then apply the bars cranking them out using the inward pressure from the straps to offset the outward pressure of the bars. Do it right and you can brace the cargo without damaging the trailer.

Hey Dave, you mentioned not cranking things out so far as to blast out the trailer walls and I was wondering if you can elaborate on that?