The Importance of Securing Your Load While Driving
Hauling too much in your truck may not only slow you down. What you carry in your truck could pose a danger to others and could get you a costly ticket.
We’ve all seen debris flying from a truck on the highway. Or pieces of steel and other material laying on the side of the interstate. Fifteen drivers were recently sidelined by a ladder that fell off of a truck and into the middle of Interstate 80 in California.
Legal Requirements
The law, California Vehicle Code (CVC) § 2803(a) states that your load has to be secure—the load on or in a vehicle must adequately secured to prevent the dropping or shifting of such load onto the roadway. A violation of the statute is a misdemeanor. If your not securely tied down, or simply not tied down at all, officers will pull you over and issue you a ticket.
The Danger of Unsecured Loads
In California a ticket for not securing your load can run upwards of $200. In other states throughout the country, judges are allowed to hand down jail time because an unsecure load can be extremely dangerous.
Risks and Accidents
Most accidents that are due to an unsecure load occur when a driver swerves at the last minute. And debris on the road continues to cause accidents long after the truck is gone. Even small objects can cause a lot of damage. If they are hit by a tire, they can become projectiles.
The Government Accountability Office conducted a study in which it concluded that roadway debris caused 440 deaths in the U.S. in 2010.
Danger to Workers and Other Drivers
Flying debris is not only deadly to drivers, but the workers who have to clean up the messes are in danger too. And they’ve seen it all—ladders, televisions, couches, mattresses. The items are taken to a maintenance yard until its taken to the dump or recycling center.
And what if you’re in a car behind a truck that does not have its load securely tied down? The California Highway Patrol says that your best defense against road debris is to leave at least a three-second gap between you and the vehicle in front of you. The three-second gap will give you enough time to react if you see something fly off or if you see something dangerous on the road.
Nothing has to actually fly off your truck for you to get a ticket. An officer may pull you over if he simply believes the load is unsecure. If you’ve received a ticket for an unsecure load, contact an experienced California traffic expert today.