Strapped in. (Scrap Industry News).

Recyclers and haulers who serve them will have throughout 2003 to make sure they are complying with new cargo securement rules put into place by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT).

A recent timetable issued by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration section of the DOT has the new standards taking effect in late December 2002, but gives motor carriers until January of 2004 to ensure complete compliance.

Parts of the new standards of concern to scrap recyclers address the hauling of flattened or crushed vehicles, roll-off and hooklift containers, and intermodal shipping containers.

For auto hulks, the rules require a fixed number of tie-downs to take place if containment walls are not present on all four sides of the load.

Makers of containers, truck bodies, tarp systems and strapping systems are responding to the new rules with new or modified product offerings.

Benlee Inc., Romulus, Mich., is marketing a three-sided trailer as a "crushed car hauler." The trailer has three fixed sides plus a patented mechanism that covers the fourth side of the trailer after it has been loaded.

A section of the revised rules issued by the DOT's Joseph M. Clapp and published in the Federal Register in September of 2002 notes the following regarding the hauling of flattened vehicles in particular:

* The use of synthetic webbing to secure crushed vehicles is prohibited.

* Flattened or crushed vehicles must be transported on vehicles that have containment walls on all four sides; containment walls on three sides plus a minimum of two tiedowns per stack; or containment walls on two sides plus a minimum of three tiedowns per stack; or a minimum of four tiedowns per vehicle stack.