PABIAC strategic objective 5 - Security of loads on road vehicles

By 31 March 2011

All employers involved in the despatch, haulage or receipt of loads of paper and paper products by road shall be able to demonstrate that they have in place appropriate management systems for ensuring that such loads are:

• placed and secured on road vehicles in accordance with the provisions of the Department for Transport Code of Practice*; and
• restrained effectively so that they do not move in any direction relative to the bed of the vehicle under reasonably foreseeable transport conditions**.

Explanatory notes and sources of guidance

1. Nothing in the above objective relieves employers of their existing legal duties under current UK legislation. Under the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 (SI 1986 No 1078), for example, there is a current requirement that "the load carried by a motor vehicle or trailer shall at all times be so secured, if necessary by physical restraint other than its own weight, and be in such a position, that neither danger nor nuisance is likely to be caused to any person or property by reason of the load or any part thereof falling or being blown from the vehicle or by reason of any other movement of the load or any part thereof in relation to the vehicle". Nor should anything in the objective be taken to imply that duty-holders have a period of grace until March 2011 to meet their existing legal obligations. The objective simply requires employers to be able to demonstrate that they have in place an appropriate management system for ensuring that loads are placed and secured in accordance with current requirements.
2. For a summary of all the relevant UK legislation and standards, please see section 2.2.1, at page 14, of HSE Research Report RR662 "Load security on curtain-sided lorries". The research report is downloadable from https://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrhtm/rr662.htm
3. **Reasonably foreseeable transport conditions include the foreseeable circumstances that any lorry driver may be expected to encounter, including infrequent situations such as those in which the driver brakes sharply to perform an emergency stop or swerves in an attempt to avoid a collision.
4. *Department for Transport Code of Practice "Safety of Loads on Vehicles – Third edition 2002" is the UK's established, authoritative code of practice setting out the principles of load safety and describing how to apply them. The Code includes guidance on the choice of vehicle, arrangement of loads on the vehicle, anchorage points, headboards, bulkheads and load-securing equipment and it sets out general requirements for securing loads of different types. The Code of Practice is available as a free download from http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/vehicles/vssafety/
5. The European Best Practice Guidelines on Cargo Securing for Road Transport published by the European Commission are fully consistent with the requirements of the DfT Code of Practice. They contain the same general requirements for securing loads and illustrate methods of securing standardised and semi-standardised cargo types including paper reels, boxes, bags, bales and sacks. In the case of loads restrained using frictional lashings the EU Best Practice Guidelines also include simple charts that allow the reader to determine the number of lashings required for a load without having to perform the calculations set out in BS EN 12195-1: 2003. The guidelines are downloadable from the European Commission website. Please heed the website's warning about the file size.