By 
Whether you’re purchasing loading ramps for your truck for your personal use, or for commercial jobs such as transporting goods, you must follow the strictest health & safety guidelines. This is not only ensuring that safety of you and/or your employees, but for the equipment or goods that you plan to load on your trucks. Whilst most quality loading ramps are relatively straight forward to use, without the appropriate due diligence, it’s all too easy for devasting accidents to occur.
1 – Know your ramps
There are many different types of loading ramps, including a variety of materials used to make them. As such, you should do your research and ensure that you’re picking the right ramp for the job. You can’t rush in and pick up the first good deal that you come across, only to learn (the hard way) that they’re not strong enough to handle the weight of the goods or equipment that you’re trying to load. This is an elementary mistake which should be avoided at all costs. As such, when looking for loading ramps for your truck, find a reputable supplier that can offer you ample information on what’s required.
When you know the loading ramp that you’re going to be using, you won’t have any issues setting them up properly—which takes us to our next point.
2 – Take your time during the setup
If you’re under pressure to meet certain deadlines, this doesn’t give you an excuse to rush the loading process. If you think that you’re running late now, just imagine how much trouble you’re going to have if you start loading something, only to find that you hadn’t set the ramps up properly. Not only can this set you back significantly, but you might end up damaging or breaking the goods altogether. Take your time! It’s better to be slightly late, than to end up having to rush one of your guys to hospital! So, double check and then check again.
3 – Avoid loading alone
Where possible, especially when dealing with particularly heavy equipment, you should always have someone to assist you. This is to ensure that when the loading is taking place, that everything is lined up correctly. If you’re struggling at the bottom of the ramp trying to push something up, you might not notice if the equipment is edging too close to the side. Avoid disaster and buddy up at all times!
4 – Leave plenty of room to manoeuvre
This isn’t always possible as there are many factors that can get in the way, but you should endeavour to leave as much room as possible when using loading ramps. Accidents occur when you don’t have enough room to operate your loading ramps properly. Never cut corners!
5 – Clean your ramps
If it’s an especially cold day, or it’s been raining for example, you should take a dry cloth to your ramps and give them a once over before using them. Dirt and excess water could be the difference between loading your goods without issue, and them sliding off and seriously hurting you.
If you need further guidance on which type of ramp is best for your truck and requirements, then find a reputable company like SureWeld to guide you. That way, you can ensure that you not only get the most appropriate loading ramps for the task at hand, but that they’re premium quality and available to you at a reasonable price.
Comments