Flatbed truck
A flatbed truck (or flatbed lorry in British English) is a type of truck which can be either articulated or rigid. As the name suggests, its bodywork is just an entirely flat, level 'bed' with no sides or roof. This allows for quick and easy loading of goods, and consequently they are used to transport heavy loads that are not delicate or vulnerable to rain, and also for abnormal loads that require more space than is available on a closed body.
Road trucks
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A flatbed has a solid bed, usually of wooden planks. There is no roof and no fixed sides. To retain the load there are often low sides which may be hinged down for loading, as a 'drop-side' truck. A 'stake truck' has no sides but has steel upright pillars, which may be removable, again used to retain the load.
Loads are retained by being manually tied down with ropes. The bed of a flatbed truck has tie-down hooks around its edge and techniques such as a trucker's hitch are used to tighten them. Weather protection is optionally provided by manually 'sheeting' the load with a tarpaulin, held down by ropes. These manual loading techniques are slow and require some care and skill. There is also the risk that an improperly secured load may be shed in transit, often leading to accidents or road blockages. There is also little theft protection for such a load. The slowness of loading loads like this led to the development of more efficient truck designs with enclosed bodies.
Some improvement was made with the general replacement of ropes by flat webbing straps, tightened with a ratchet. These reduced the skill of 'roping up' and improved the control of tension, leading to fewer shed loads.
Decline of flatbeds
Flatbeds became rare in the 1980s as the majority of road freight changed to either containers or pallet loads carried on larger and more efficient trucks, optimised for quicker loading by fork-lift trucks. Containers are carried on specialised semi-trailers with twistlocks in the corners to retain the container. Pallet loads are carried in either box bodies, loaded through rear doors, or curtain-sided bodies loaded through the sides. Both of these protect loads from the weather and can be quickly loaded with standard loads, but are more restrictive for single bulky loads, loaded by crane. The haulage and logistics business also changed around the same time as a greater proportion became more regular in nature, such as standard daily loads of equally-sized boxes from a distribution centre to a supermarket, rather than the unpredictable ad hoc nature or earlier road transport.
Flatbeds are still in use, but are now used for more specialised cargoes, such as constructional steelwork or lighter abnormal loads, such as machinery.
Low loaders, for construction machinery and heavy plant vehicles, are not considered as flatbeds. Neither are abnormal load carriers for heavy haulage.
Tow trucks
Some vehicle recovery tow trucks have flat beds and are able to winch a recovered vehicle entirely on-board. They can then drive the vehicle away for repair without needing to tow it. This allows a faster journey, does not require a driver in the vehicle being towed, and allows a damaged vehicle to be recovered when it cannot be towed. As these flat beds usually slope gradually to the rear, unlike the level bed of a cargo flatbed, they are known as 'beavertails'. Some tow truck beds are demountable and may be lowered behind the truck for easy loading, then both bed and load winched back aboard as one.
Railway flatbeds
Railways also employ flatbed trucks in engineering trains and freight trains. In Britain and the Commonwealth the term bogie flat is often applied to a bogie flatbed truck. Although less common, flatbed railway trucks on rigid frames and axles are sometimes used, with both 4-wheel and 6-wheel versions being extant. In British English, the term 'truck' most commonly relates to railway vehicles, with the word 'lorry' more commonly applied to road vehicles.
See also
References
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