Does your company use trailers or heavy equipment in its daily operations? If so, you need to understand the concept of overloading or exceeding the permissible load capacity of a trailer. Overloading can seriously affect a trailer’s safety and performance. It may also cause financial and legal losses.
Overloading a trailer’s load capacity is a situation where the load carried by a trailer exceeds the maximum limit set. Trailer load capacity refers to the maximum weight that the trailer can safely carry. A good understanding of trailer loads helps prevent overloading and maintains optimal safety and performance. In addition, there are several factors that influence the occurrence of overloading in trailer load capacity, including:
Factors Affecting Trailer Load Capacity Overloading
1. Lack of Understanding of Trailer Load Capacity
One of the main factors that causes overloading is a lack of understanding of trailer load capacity. If the driver doesn’t understand the trailer’s capacity, they might unknowingly exceed the limit. This increases safety risks.
2. Unknown Actual Weight of Load
Estimating or guessing the weight of a load without performing an accurate weighing can lead to overloading. Drivers struggle to ensure safe loading without knowing the load’s actual weight. This can lead to exceeding trailer limits.
3. Time Pressure and Job Requirements
Sometimes, time pressure or strict job requirements make someone tend to load more without paying attention to the set load limits. The desire to maximize transportation in one trip can encourage ignoring load capacity limits and risk overloading.
4. Lack of Monitoring and Supervision
Lack of monitoring and supervision of the load and use of the trailer can cause overloading. If there is no system that monitors the load weight in real time or a lack of monitoring from the driver or operator, the risk of overloading can increase.
https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-truck-on-an-unpaved-road-9529407/
Overloading the trailer’s load capacity has significant impacts and needs to be considered. Overloading increases accident risk, damages vehicles, boosts fuel consumption, reduces performance, and leads to legal and financial consequences.
For that, some tips that can be done to help companies avoid overloading on trailer load capacity are to understand the trailer load capacity, carry out accurate weighing, ensure even load distribution on the trailer, provide training to drivers or operators, and carry out a monitoring system.
Read other articles: Important Factors in Using Trailers and Heavy Equipment for Safety