Getting the Right Fasteners for Truck Cargo

Trucks stand as a staple method for delivering cargo today, both for industry and private citizens, and having the right truck for the job is crucial. In fact, some companies are based entirely on selling truck services to client companies and collecting invoices for the services rendered. Sometimes, shipping brokers may be involved to mediate a fair deal between a shipper company and the carrier company that it hires for a job, and these trucks will have to be ready for the job. Bigger rig trucks can be used for delivering vast amounts of cargo, often for retailers, and some trucks may in fact travel LTL, or less than truckload. That is, multiple shipper clients will share space in a truck to save on costs. Some other trucks will in fact be reefer trucks, which have refrigeration units inside, and other trucks will be specialized for carrying hazardous materials, such as liquid nitrogen or flammable gas in canisters. How big is the truck industry, and what auxiliary equipment might be needed? Truck tie down hooks, truck tie down straps, retractable anchors, and more may be used if need be, but when?

Trucking Today

Trucks are primarily used as cargo delivery vessels, ranging from pickup trucks in the civilian sector all the way up to huge 18-wheelers delivering shipments to major retailers like Target, Wal-Mart, and more. Lighter pickup trucks sell well today; in fact, around 18% of all vehicle sold are pickup trucks in the United States, and light trucks such as pickups, SUVs, and vans had outsold regular cars for the fifth year in a row in 2017, and this represented a market share of 64.5%. Kelley Blue Book says that the average price of a new vehicle is right around $35,309, and many financing options are available for buyers.

What are all these trucks doing? Many of them are used for their rear cargo beds, and they can deliver nearly anything as long as the truck’s weight limit is not exceeded. A person moving to a new home may put their boxed items and furniture in the rear bed, and business equipment like dry ice blowers or air conditioning repair gear may be held there. This makes pickups popular for smaller businesses, who can deliver their goods in such a manner. Even other vehicles like ATVs or dune buggies might be held there, or raw goods such as bricks or cinder blocks.

Of course, such items being held in a pickup truck should be secured, such as with truck tie down straps, or else items may get loose and interfere with local traffic and even cause accidents. Statistics show that this happens fairly often, and truck drivers are urged to make sure that truck tie down straps or truck tie down hooks or retractable tie downs are used to prevent this. How often is this an issue? The AAA conducted a survey over four years and found that errant debris caused more than 200,00 crashes, and two in three of those crashes were due to improperly secured truck cargo falling out and getting onto the road. Among all these crashes, nearly 500 people were killed and just over 39,000 were injured, showing that truck cargo can be a serious hazard if truck tie down straps are not used when needed.

Truck tie down straps should be easy for any truck driver to acquire, anywhere from an auto parts shop or a hardware store all the way to online retailers if need be, and different straps will vary based on material used, length, and the amount of weight that they can handle. A truck driver can purchase straps based on the weight and size of items to be transported, as well as the width of the truck itself. Cargo webbing may be used if many smaller items are being transported, such as bricks, and single, larger items like washing machines, ATVs, or couches may call for regular straps to keep them held tightly in the truck’s bed. In fact, businesses who make use of pickups for their crews may mandate that their drivers use such straps and webs to keep items secure, both to prevent loss of valuable items and to prevent liability from a road-based accident from loose items.