You’ve made it through Blitz Week and Operation Safe Driver Week; now it’s time to make it through the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s (CVSA) Brake Safety Week. For all you worried drivers out there, thankfully Brake Safety Week isn’t quite as intense as Blitz Week.

Being a truck driver is no doubt a tough job. You have to be focused 100 percent of the time. Looking away from the road for just a few seconds can cause a bad accident. Then you have to take into consideration the other difficult aspects of your job, like securing your freight. If cargo isn’t properly secured, it can shift on your trailer or fall off entirely — damaging the freight and harming anyone who may be driving around you.

As a truck driver, you’ve probably hauled a lot of different types of loads (maybe on a lot of different types of flatbed trailers) in your career. Flatbed trailer weight placement will change from load to load and there’s no exact science. Still, it can be helpful to know a few best practice tips for trailer weight placement — especially as a flatbed driver.

Tarping a flatbed load isn't as simple as tossing a tarp over your load, throwing some bungees on it and calling it good. Tarping is a tough job. Tarps are awkward and heavy and you have to use them when it’s freezing outside or stifling. Tarping can also be a dangerous job. Not only do you have to get into awkward positions to carry the tarp to the top of the load, but you may have to crawl on top of the load itself. Add any amount of wind to the equation and it gets extremely dangerous. The tarp acts as a sail in the wind and it can take you for a ride. Drivers tarping their loads are highly prone to injuries, whether because they fall off the load or strain their back or shoulders.

Do you have what it takes to be a flatbed trucker and secure different types of cargo every day? Flatbed trucking and load securement can be intimidating. If you were to take your tractor and flatbed trailer and turn them upside down and shake them, would your load still be secure? That’s the goal with cargo securement — your load should be so secure that nothing is going to make it come loose.