New guidelines published for ‘safe loads’ transport across Europe

20 January 2014

Clarity has arrived for British freight carriers fed up with being stopped in Europe over allegations that their vehicle is incorrectly loaded.

Reports suggest that the problem is worst in German-speaking countries and emanates from there being more than one rule governing loading standards and the appropriate restraints to be used.

Now, to provide clarification, The International Road Transport Union (IRU) has published its International Guidelines in Safe Load Securing for Road Transport.

While the IRU guidelines are mainly based on a European standard on load restraining on road vehicles (EN 12195-1:2010), they also include other safe practices from across the road transport sector, such as timber and vehicle transport, as well as others not covered by the European standard.

The British International Freight Association (BIFA) sits on a Health and Safety Executive (HSE) committee where there is concern that the transport and logistics sector has the third highest accident rate of any UK industry. 

While shifting loads cause relatively few accidents, they are a factor in most cases where freight vehicles overturn, causing massive hold-ups on busy roads 

A copy of the guidelines can be accessed by clicking : http://www.iru.org/cms-filesystem-action/mix-publications/SafeLoadSecuring8th.pdf

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