It’ll be fine….or will it?

Heavier Items Towards The Front.

Before you start strapping anything down, organizing your items is a crucial first step. 

Loading your heaviest items to the front of your bed near your cab will keep your truck’s center of gravity balanced.  

An even level of weight distribution will maintain your truck’s stability, steering, and handling. It could also help boost your MPG along the way.

Secure All Loads.

Even the lightest load can cause an accident.  Don’t be casual about small loads.  Loose items can blow away while drive and present a significant risk to others, causing hundreds of accidents each year.

Always Use Ratchet Straps.

The first piece of required equipment is 4 heavy duty ratchet straps. Plain rope and bungee cords are important for some purposes, but if you want to keep large items secured heavy duty ratchet straps are a must. A good rule of thumb for using ratchet straps is to tie something down from at least 2 angles.

Securing items from 2 different angles is ideal. If one strap comes loose or breaks while you’re driving, you still have your 2nd strap acting as a safety net.

Ratchet straps are versatile, strong, and latch to your truck bed better than any other strap solution.

Overhanging Items Need Flags.

If you’re transporting things like lumber, PVC or metal piping, or any items you think are hard to see that stretch past your tailgate, you should have a brightly colored flag attached. The most common colors to flag your cargo with is orange or red, but any bright color allowing the cars behind you to see it is ideal.

You might be thinking to yourself – the compactor fits in the bed and its heavy – it wont go anywhere!  You could not be more wrong!!

You’ll destroy the bed of the truck if you get cut off. 

This is a pickup that did not have a compactor strapped in.  He was cut off in traffic.  The impact from the compactor to the bed/cabin smashed the window.  While he was correct that the compactor would cause no damage outside of the truck, other people were not his only liability.  The company truck was the other unconsidered liability.  

Similarly, you might be thinking – the ladder fits in the bed – its heavy – what’s the harm?

Same as above.  See the picture below on the tie down technique.  This process took all of 60 seconds.  And, its worth it to not loose your ladder, damage your truck, or kill someone, isn’t it?