Photo of the month – January 2006 – Special 2

[German version]

The 2005 carrot harvest, take two!

Since the first attempt at loading up didn’t last too long, we’ll start again from the beginning! The driver wanted to switch from one highway to another. In a long, right-hand bend, the crates of carrots tipped into the left curtain of a standard curtainsider with the following results:

The superstructure of a curtainsider is not particularly stable, and in this case it was the roof that was pulled down by the weight pushing against the curtain. At the end of the bend, the crates briefly tipped upright again.

But the roof was permanently deformed. Now the curtain was loose and the securing hooks came free of their anchoring points, which meant that the tarpaulin was free to flap like a real curtain. Which of course meant that it was no longer securing the load in any way.

In the next right-hand bend, the crates of carrots again tipped into the tarpaulin. This immediately gave way and the crates crashed onto the road. All of which added up to an unexpected second crop of carrots this year.

It was fortunate that this didn’t happen in a bend in a town. Any pedestrians on the sidewalk would almost certainly have been injured.




The picture clearly shows that the entire superstructure has been deformed. (See Figure 3)




Standard curtainsiders do not have reinforced roofs, end walls or end frames. The tarpaulin is designed only as protection from the weather and is not suitable for use in load securing.

If a load of this type is to be secured using the superstructure itself, a vehicle with robust side walls or a certified trailer are possibilities.

A load of this type can be transported in a curtainsider if appropriate load securing measures are employed. One option is to bind the load together using long, wide angled rails, such as hollow plastic sections, and then lashing the load down over these. Angled rails of this type unitize the load and minimize the effort involved in securing it.


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