Flatbed Securement 101: How Your Load Gets Strapped and Tarped

You built the load, you paid for it, and now it has to ride on an open deck through wind, rain, and highway speed with nothing but straps and chains holding it down. If you have never watched a driver secure a flatbed, the process can look like a mystery. It isn’t. There are rules behind every strap and every chain, and knowing them helps you spec the right freight for the right trailer and understand what you are paying for.

Here is how a load actually gets locked down.

Straps vs. chains: they do different jobs

The first thing to know is that straps and chains are not interchangeable. Each has a working load limit, and the driver has to add up enough of them to hold your freight.

• Ratchet straps (webbing tie-downs) handle lighter, finished, or surface-sensitive freight. Think crated equipment, lumber, bundled pipe, and palletized goods. They cinch tight without marring the product.
• Chains and binders carry the heavy, rough, or high-value steel work: coils, machinery, structural steel, concrete products, anything with sharp edges or serious weight. Chains don’t flinch at edges that would slice a strap.

The general rule across open-deck freight is simple: the total securement has to be strong enough to hold the cargo in place under braking, cornering, and acceleration. That means a minimum number of tie-downs based on the weight and length of the load, plus enough aggregate working load limit to cover it. A longer load needs more tie-downs, not just tighter ones.

Edge protection and where the tie-downs go

Good securement isn’t just about how many straps. It’s about where they sit and what protects them.

• Corner protectors keep a strap from being cut by a sharp edge and spread the pressure so the strap doesn’t chew into your product.
• Direct tie-downs run from the trailer to an anchor point on the cargo itself, holding it against sliding.
• Indirect (over-the-top) tie-downs press down on the load, adding friction so it stays put.
• Blocking and bracing stop movement front to back, usually with dunnage, chocks, or stakes.

A driver who knows the freight will mix these. A machine gets chained at its anchor points and blocked so it can’t creep. A stack of crates gets strapped over the top with corner protection so the webbing survives the trip.

Tarping: the part nobody enjoys, and why it matters

Tarping is the hardest, dirtiest job on a flatbed, and it’s the one that protects your product from weather, road grime, and UV. If your freight can’t take rain or sun, it needs a tarp.

There are two common types:

• Steel tarps are shorter and used for flat, low loads like coils and plate.
• Lumber tarps are longer with a drop skirt to cover taller loads like building materials and machinery.

Tarps are heavy, awkward, and a real safety concern to throw over an eight-foot load in the wind. That’s part of why tarped freight often costs more than untarped: it’s labor and risk. When you’re building a quote, tell your carrier up front whether the load needs a tarp. A surprise tarp request at pickup slows everything down and can leave a driver short on time.

What this means when you book a flatbed

The more your carrier knows before the truck rolls, the cleaner your pickup goes. When you request open-deck service, be ready to share:

1. Dimensions and weight, including anything that overhangs or exceeds standard width or height.
2. What the freight is made of, so the driver brings the right mix of straps and chains.
3. Whether it needs a tarp, and how tall it stands once loaded.
4. How it loads, by forklift, crane, or drive-on, and whether it has anchor points.

Get those four right and you avoid the two worst outcomes: a driver who shows up without the gear to secure your load, and freight that arrives damaged because it wasn’t tied down or covered the way it should have been.

Where Comet fits

Open-deck freight is our house specialty, and securement is a big reason shippers hand it to us. Standard flatbed, oversized, permitted, and specialty loads all get strapped, chained, and tarped by people who do it every day and know the rules cold. If it has to ride on a deck and survive the highway, we can figure out how to secure it.

If you only have a few pallets of open-deck freight and don’t need a whole trailer, that’s a job for our sister brand, FlatbedLTL (flatbed.delcoe.com), which is built around partial flatbed moves with pricing you can plan around.

Have a load you’re not sure how to secure, or one that other carriers keep bouncing? Call Comet National, tell us the dimensions and what it’s made of, and we’ll tell you exactly how we’d move it.