Truck Topics

Are you watching your weight? (Your straight truck weight, that is)

Putting a load in a straight truck is a simple enough proposition, right?

The forklift driver just drives into your truck with the skid(s), crate(s),tub(s), totes(s), etc., drops them where you tell him, you strap 'em down and you're on your way.

Not so fast.

"We see problems when that new driver picks up a load and doesn't weigh it at a truck stop.  He'll think that because he only has 8,000 lbs. on the truck, he's alright.  He doesn't understand why he's been pulled around the scale house for being overweight."

"Now he's been taken out of service and we have to get equipment out there to move the freight."

So says Roger Foulk about a few of the rookie straight truck drivers he has dealt with in his two years as Safety Supervisor for Panther II Transportation.  Before assuming his present position, Roger racked up fourteen years of OTR tractor-trailer duties. 

He says, "When in doubt, find a scale.  It's Panther II's policy that if the driver stops at a truck stop scale and discovers a weight problem, we just send them back to the shipper to have it corrected."  

"In that situation," he continues, "the driver has done everything we've asked him to do.  But, if he continues on down the road and passes a number of truck stop scales and doesn't weigh his load, that's a different story.  He could have helped himself simply by weighing the truck."

"Positioning is the key; where you set that load in the box is everything."

The industry people who were contacted for this article all had this one bit of wisdom to share:  Know your truck!

Veteran expediter Carroll Bean of FedEx Custom Critical's White Glove Division agrees with that concept and adds another truism.  He says, "You've got to know your empty weight; with the tanks full of fuel, you know exactly what your truck is going to weigh on both the steer and drive axles."

He says another trick he uses is to measure the inside of the box and mark where the exact center of the rear axles are; in his case, a Western Star with a twin screw setup.

"When you load your freight, check it the first few loads," Carroll says.  "We check it with different size loads.  Obviously, if you have a full box load of 10,000 lbs., you'll have the weight distributed throughout the box, so weigh it to get an idea of your axle weight."

"It makes a difference of course, whether you have a twin screw or single axle, whether you have forward or setback front axles, whether you have your fuel tanks set forward under the doors or are they set back under the sleeper.  All those differences determine where you position the load."

Carroll says that one way to speed the learning curve on weight in your truck is to keep a record.  Jot down the heavy weight loads somewhere and where the freight was positioned for future reference. 

"I had to learn how to put the weight on by doing it a few times and going to the scales and moving the freight around," states Larry Steinfeld, a straight truck owner-operator with Con-Way NOW.  "I haven't had to re-position a load in maybe two and a half years." 

"The nose of the truck with the weight of the sleeper is always heavy so you want to get the weight over the rears.  You want it on the rear axle(s) or a little behind the axle(s) to take the weight off the nose."

Larry says that his skids can run from 1,000-2,000 lbs., but says that as a rule of thumb, the heavier the load, the more he positions the load towards the rear axles.

Larry and wife Linda operate a Peterbilt with tag axle and he says that with the tag on the ground, he can handle just over 20,000 lbs.  The heaviest load he's carried was in the 18,000 lb. range. That load was 7 skids in the truck's 22-foot box which he positioned over top of the rear axle.  This was about a third of the box back from the nose with the last skid around 3 feet from the door.

"What we tell the new contractor is to set the freight towards the back of the box.  He'll have to measure his box to find the axle position.
You've got to know your truck."

That's the word from Don Schewing, Contractor Relations at Tri-State Expedited Service.  Don has a background of twenty-seven years in tractor-trailers and he says that the beginning straight truck owner-operator/driver can always seek the counsel of someone right there on the dock:

"As a rule, the new driver can ask the forklift driver about how to load the truck.  These guys do it day after day and they're quite knowledgeable.  If a driver goes in with a good attitude and asks for their advice and help, chances are that the freight will be positioned correctly."

Rich Moore has a lot of miles and a lot of loading experience behind him.  He's been expediting since 1987 and is currently a FedEx Custom Critical White Glove contractor.

"I don't have the rear axle location marked on the inside of the box," says Rich, "but it's probably a good idea. I pretty much sense where the axle is."

He continues, "Let's say I had three pallets; I would load two side by side in the front and the third in the middle between the two at an angle.  I would run a strap across the middle."

"Now if I had eight pallets to load, I would put four up in front and then position the other four so that there is about a two foot gap between the two groups with a load bar in front of the rear group."

The "oddball" load

Those are some of the techniques used by our advisors for loading the typical multi-pallet loads that expediters see daily.  What about the "oddball" load, say one crate measuring, let's say ten feet long, and four by four, with a weight of say, 11,500 lbs.?

"It's so easy to load a straight truck heavy," says Panther II's Roger Foulk.

"It's obvious that you need a starting point; you can't have that much weight sitting over the drives but you still can't have it up on the bulkhead or you're overweight on the steers."

"I would try to have at least a third of the weight over the drives.  That's what I try to tell our new drivers.  They usually start with the weight all the way up front."

"For example, (and I don't have a formula for this), on a load of 4 skids that each weighs a thousand pounds, I would load that 24 foot box with the front skids 4-6 feet from the nose of the box."

For Tri-State's, Don Schewing, the answer is a simple one:  "I'd set that crate about 3 feet from the back door in a 22 foot box."

Rich Moore:  "With a large crate with a lot of weight I would load it so that the front of the crate is about two thirds into the box and secure it with bars and straps.  That way, I can put most of the weight on the rear axle."

"If you set that heavy crate all the way to the front wall," Carroll Bean says, "you'll probably be over weight on your steer axles.  Move that load back towards the rear axle, which can handle the most weight."

Freight Securement
 
"Don't be afraid to put E-track in your truck," says Carroll Bean.  "Don't cut corners on that, it's very beneficial to have E-track at floor level.  Don't be afraid to put as many as five rows of the track on the walls, from the floor and every foot and a half up the walls.  I have four rows on the front of the box."

"I've done something that many people don't do; it's an extra expense but I've found that it's really made a big difference when I'm hauling high-value freight and ensure that the freight is not damaged.  I've got 34 floor rings in my truck and carry 40 ratchet straps of various lengths."

"I have three rows of floor rings with the rings spaced two feet apart. When we haul hospital equipment for example, there may be switches, dials and other protrusions that preclude strapping it to a wall, it has to sit in the middle of the floor." 

He concludes, "Don't be afraid to put plenty of securement devices in the box unless you're only going to carry dry freight like durable automotive parts."

For his cargo control needs, Larry Steinfeld carries four of the square load bars and six round ones.  His equipment includes a come along and a length of chain for pulling the skids to the rear.  He uses three rows of e-track in the box along with eleven ratchet straps and, "a couple of real heavy ones for use on a flatbed."

"I use six E-track load bars and fifteen ratchet straps," states Rich Moore.  "A good idea is to have the metal load plate at the door.  The plate keeps the fork lifts from getting stuck or damaging the floor as much."

Carroll and Rich both carry pallet jacks, a White Glove Services requirement.  Carroll states that he can "move up to 5,000 lbs. with the pallet jack, sometimes a little over.  It comes in handy."

"We carry a pallet jack and a hand truck," relates Rich.  "Some places can't get a fork lift on the truck, when you're loading from the street for example.  The pallet jack is the easy way to position the load."

Rich tells of one of his more memorable loads:
"The most challenging load we've had that comes to mind was when we hauled an old, beat-up battery-powered fork lift that weighed 12,500 pounds.  It went from Titusville, FL to San Jose, CA."

"It turned out that the consignee had a construction project in Russia and they leave the equipment there when they're done.  They loaded the fork lift on with an even larger fork lift." 

"We thought we had loaded it right, but once we got underway, we found that it wasn't riding right, it was overweight on the back axle.  Luckily, the shipper had given me the key to the fork lift, so I moved it up about two feet and we were good to go."

"It was quite a load for the truck, though.  We were crawling up the mountains north of Los Angeles, running about thirty miles per hour."