If you want to quote the rule book by the letter, very little that moves down the highway would (or should) pass. First, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the DOT rules would apply only to commercial entities. While I am part of a small business, neither the truck, trailer or tractor belong to the business. No way to prove that any of the equipment is involved in a commercial venture. In my REAL job, I work in the trucking industry, and most people would be shocked at how little secures the loads moving down the road. Even the best tie down methods serve mainly to keep the load from falling off, not to keep it from being thrown clear in an accident. Freight that we move in van trailers isn't secured at all, and that includes, steel racks that weigh more than my tractor does, aluminum ingots, rolls of copper coil and rolls of copper wire, all just sitting on the trailer floor. For 17 years we had up to 15 trucks hauling stainless rods, bars and angles all over the country. The shipper demanded full enclosed side kits, so instead of the binder chains being hooked to the rub rails, they were hooked to chain pockets in the trailer floor. Those chain pockets were welded to the trailer crossmembers with little more than a 1 inch bead of weld. Those fancy headache racks the steel hauler have? They serve mainly as a place to hang the chains and binders. In a serious accident, they would just help the load clean the cab off the frame. I guess I could have welded the hooks, on, but who says my welds are any good? At least the bolts have an established shear number. As for accidents, my experience is that if you are even slightly at fault, they will sue you. If you do everything 100% wrong, they sue you. If you do everything 100% right they STILL sue you, the facts be damned. I'm all for being safe, but if I let myself be governed by everything that COULD go wrong, I'd never get out of bed in the morning.
Most of my designs are variations on other people's ideas anyway.
