What would you have done differently??

[Papa_Buck]

Looks like 6 bar.. could be worse. Picture is not straight behind him so can’t see if his lights are visible. Usually we try to center load it but depending on customer, they may have requested spread to get chains around it for lifting. O ernamg is ok, depending on where he is at. No pilot required for that and with the mag lifts they use to load us,they won’t let us bunk more than 2 4x4 under front or back.

Or is it a trick question. The driver taking the picture is distracted and the only violation in the pic... put the phone down.

[Chamberpains]

Your funny if you think for a second that there is nothing wrong. This isn't out in big country. This is in one of the heavily populated hell holes on the east coast. I clearly stated that this occurred on the Baltimore Beltway. For guys that never see the east coast thats in Maryland right in between Washington DC and Philadelphia. You may have heard of those places before.

That is 12'-15' of over hang. Rawze is right. On the Baltimore beltway unescorted is a big no no. Also at that length of overhang he would need strobes on the load itself. His permits surely would've stated that he needed both.

I refused to get a picture straight on because of the potential of the load touching the road and getting ripped off the trailer and no visible rear lighting. Yes, it had that much flex to it. Again, I watched it flex to about 1' from touching the ground on a minor bump. I didn't want to be any where near him when he hit a good hard dip or bridge rise.

Not only couldn't you see ANY of his lights at all, you couldn't see the oversized banner. And those used dirty red flags he has on the bar were tangled in the bar. I know red is legal and stated to use on the permits but I prefer florescent orange flags for better visibility when hauling over length.

There is next to nothing giving following traffic any indication how long the load is. This a visual nightmare with hundreds of cars racing around it.

Who do you think is gonna be held financially and possibly criminally responsible if some poor soul ran his vehicle through the back of the load and got killed?

I'm glad I had picked up my camera and snapped a pic. If this happened to be you Papa_Buck or one of your buddies you may want to take a step aside from the operation your running and realize there are MAJOR public safety problems in it. Just because the customer wants something put on your trailer a certain way doesn't have any bearing on whether it can be hauled safely. That is totally and completely up the person hauling it. If the customer says it needs to go on the trailer a certain way that is unsafe then you as a professional operator and the guy that is 100% liable for anything that goes wrong, has a legal and moral obligation to tell the customer to figure out some other way to haul it. REFUSE THE LOAD.

[Papa_Buck]

Here’s a list of what’s wrong with what you just posted.

1, that’s 60’ bar on what looks like a 48’ trailer. I can see at least 2’ overhang on the front which means he has a 10’ overhang on the back. With the droop, we’ll say 9’. That puts his overall length at about 82’ (He really needs a longer wheelbase if he hails this regularly). Maryland oversized overhang starts at 6’ and doesn’t require escorts until his overall length is over 85’.

2. Signs are not required unless overwidth (which he is not) or over 10’ overhang. He might be that, but just barely.

3. Escorts are not required until overall length is over 85’. Again I don’t think he is as from the above math.

4. I can see his lights in the picture, but that might change if we were behind him, you said you couldn’t so k.. no lights

5. Your unhappy with the droop. There is no law against that. There is about touching the ground, but you said it came close. That’s legal. If he would have piled then all in the center if would have stiffened them up a little, but they can’t do that with coated bar.

6. As you said back east is a different story, that’s probably why it’s not on a stretch trailer. It’s sometimes hard enough to get a 48’ spread axle around a corner, but a stretch trailer out to 60’ is impossible, that’s why they loaded it on a 48’

7. There is nothing wrong with you refusing the load, I have hauled that droopy stuff all the time, been through ports with it, been inspected with it on, delivered to construction sites for all sorts of state projects with it, no problems.

8. If you were able to take a picture with “that many problems” I wish you would have reported his but to the cops. When you see illegal stuff, call it in so the bad people can be stopped and us legal people don’t get a black eye over their stupid moves. If you thought it should not be legal, why didn’t you call it in?

So, after this in-depth commentary, we decided we might not be able to see his lights, which I can in the picture, we might not see his sign, (which he might not need) but I can in the picture, his load might flex and touch the ground, which you say didn’t happen but came close.

[Chamberpains]

For this posting I guess I should've taken the pic directly from the rear but I just couldn't bring myself to get in behind him again. Thats my fault and a bit misleading. But my intentions were accomplished the conversation is being had.

I'm not sure where your pointing out im wrong. Your assumption that he had overhang in the front is wrong. He has it loaded to the leading edge of the trailer. But that not where this is problematic for me. I have no concerns of the legality of the load length. If anything we're exposing the short comings of the laws which allow guys to haul stuff like this in this manner.

Its all about being able to see lighting, proper load visualization and the possibility of the load touching the ground at speed. I want drivers to think safety above law when it comes to hauling things.

[JimT]

Rebar sucks. Bent rebar can be even worse! (at least from a securement standpoint)

There's nothing wrong with the bundles spread side to side as they are, but it isn't secured properly to allow for that gap. At least a few chains or straps should weave between the bundles, or pop up and secure individual bundles, to prevent them from shifting together and loosening the securements in transit. Another option would be to wrap a chain or strap around multiple bundles with blocks in between them. --- Remember, a load must be secured from movement in ALL directions. We used to use the techniques I described above at the steel distributor that I worked for. We also had bars that could be used to pry the bundles apart to get straps or chains around them. Most customers who received rebar had their own long pry bars for this exact purpose.

As for overhang and length, I don't know what MD allows, but unless he's only going a short distance he also needs to account for the other near by states own laws. As for 60' stretch trailers, I ran those all over New England all the way down to DE. No escorts needed and most roads can handle them just fine.

I will agree with Chamber on the Banners/Flags and lights. They are all needed for visibility. If the load is gonna hang that low then the lights/banner/flags should be placed appropriately (including auxiliary stop/turn/ID lights) so that following vehicles can see them, unobstructed.

I must say, it's VERY rare to see rebar hang THAT far off the back of a trailer, at least in this part of the country. While there really isn't a requirement to use a longer trailer, a stretch (extendable) would provide better support and axle weight distribution.

I don't see how it would be a public safety issue if the rebar bounced and touched the ground. It's not going to yank it off the trailer. However, it could damage the rebar, bad if it's got the green coating. But most importantly, from a government/enforcement perspective, it could damage the road if it made contact and that could also result in small pieces of debris to fly off and damage something or injury someone.

[Volvo8873]

Chamberpains...

Does that bug shield work for dealing with some bugs or is it just for looks?


sorry for the off shoot question! lol I always wondered if they work somewhat...

[Waterloo]

(11-22-2020 )Chamberpains Wrote:  I figured I'd try to keep life in this thread. Its truly a good one for open air freight guys.

I ran up behind this clown on the Baltimore beltway last week.


If you can't see how disgustingly wrong this is than you should never think about hauling flatbed freight.

On a very minor bump I watched the rebar flex to about 1 foot from the ground.

Anyone care to explain what all is wrong in this guy load?

I was fired from an outfit up in ND for refusing to haul a load of rebar like that... It was loose, hundreds, two hundred just thrown on a gooseneck, all over the place and a good 6 feet hanging off the rear end and no way to properly secure. They wanted it moved 100 miles, and no, I did not load it, but I sure was fired! Which was fine with me, had another job in short order.

[Ricky]

(11-23-2020 )Papa_Buck Wrote:  Here’s a list of what’s wrong with what you just posted.

1, that’s 60’ bar on what looks like a 48’ trailer. I can see at least 2’ overhang on the front which means he has a 10’ overhang on the back. With the droop, we’ll say 9’. That puts his overall length at about 82’ (He really needs a longer wheelbase if he hails this regularly). Maryland oversized overhang starts at 6’ and doesn’t require escorts until his overall length is over 85’.

2. Signs are not required unless overwidth (which he is not) or over 10’ overhang. He might be that, but just barely.

3. Escorts are not required until overall length is over 85’. Again I don’t think he is as from the above math.

4. I can see his lights in the picture, but that might change if we were behind him, you said you couldn’t so k.. no lights

5. Your unhappy with the droop. There is no law against that. There is about touching the ground, but you said it came close. That’s legal. If he would have piled then all in the center if would have stiffened them up a little, but they can’t do that with coated bar.

6. As you said back east is a different story, that’s probably why it’s not on a stretch trailer. It’s sometimes hard enough to get a 48’ spread axle around a corner, but a stretch trailer out to 60’ is impossible, that’s why they loaded it on a 48’

7. There is nothing wrong with you refusing the load, I have hauled that droopy stuff all the time, been through ports with it, been inspected with it on, delivered to construction sites for all sorts of state projects with it, no problems.

8. If you were able to take a picture with “that many problems” I wish you would have reported his but to the cops. When you see illegal stuff, call it in so the bad people can be stopped and us legal people don’t get a black eye over their stupid moves. If you thought it should not be legal, why didn’t you call it in?

So, after this in-depth commentary, we decided we might not be able to see his lights, which I can in the picture, we might not see his sign, (which he might not need) but I can in the picture, his load might flex and touch the ground, which you say didn’t happen but came close.

You are pretty spot on on most of what you said, most but not all. You can not haul rebar or anything else that hangs down that far blocking the view of the taillights. I make 90 percent of my living from overlenth loads. This guy is a pure money hungry clown for hauling that hanging like that. If a DOT officer would see that he will be pulled. It will pretty much stay where it's loaded but you CAN'T see the taillights. Most states are pretty easy on length as long as the overhang is flagged or flags and lights if enough overhang. I'm 80 feet long empty and I have ran with 19 feet of rear overhang with a rear escort. That driver should have the right equipment to haul that. If he got hit from behind he would be living in a cardboard box after a good attorney got done with his dumb self.

[Ricky]

also he's one not running a headache rack. Yeah I know it's not required, blah blah blah. I saw a beautiful kenworth a while back with the back of the sleeper pushed in with I beams imprinted into the back. A tractor pulling a flatbed should have one, but all these super truckers feel different.