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Packing for a Move

Four Reasons To Use A Tarp Over Your Truck Bed

28 October 2015

Aaron Carroll

If you are getting ready to do your fall landscape projects, you may be ready to run up to your local home improvement store to pick up all of your needed supplies. Although your mulch, gravel, sand, tools, or other needed components may fit on the back of your truck, make sure you take along your truck tarp. There are more than a few reasons you will want to use it.

Tarping Can Keep You Legal

Many people feel that tarping laws only apply to large flatbed or dump trucks, but this is not always the case. Depending on where you live, you may run the risk of incurring several different violations for not securing your load even if it is in the back of your pickup truck.

For example, in Alabama, 32-5-76 Spilling loads or litter statute starts off by stating, "whoever willfully and knowingly operates...a motor vehicle so loaded with gravel, rock, slag, bricks, in such manner or in such condition that the contents of the vehicle spills out..." is guilty of  Class C misdemeanor and can incur a possible fine up to $500. The law does not specify that the vehicle has to be a commercial vehicle. 

Alaska 28.35.251 specifically states that your load must be contained or confined with a cover that is securely fastened to prevent your load from escaping, and Arkansas 27-35-110 states spilling loads on highways is prohibited. Most states have similar laws in place, in addition to local rules and regulations.

Some common violations that you may incur from not tarping your load include:

• Littering 
• Leaking/spilling/blowing/falling cargo
• Failing to secure your load
• Failing to secure vehicle equipment and more

​Tarping Ensures You Get Your Money's Worth

Gravel, mulch, sand, and soil are normally sold by volume. For example, if you needed to cover approximately 160 square feet of yard with mulch that is approximately 2 inches thick, you could purchase one cubic yard. But if you lose 20 percent of your load before you arrive home, you are not going to have enough to complete your project. Tarping, or covering your load, will help to ensure that you get the amount you pay for home.

Tarping Helps To Keep The Items In Your Truck Bed Secure

Once you place materials on the back of your truck, they need to stay there until you get ready to remove them. Unfortunately, because the back of your truck is open, anyone walking by will be able to see what is in the open bed of your truck, and if you are not careful, they may help themselves to items that belong to you. Tarping the back of your truck will keep your items out of sight, as well as make it more difficult for anyone else to remove anything that does not belong to them.

Tarping Can Help To Reduce Your Liability

Most people have either been hit by a flying rock on the road or know someone who has. While some of these rocks are road debris thrown by the other driver's tires, other rocks come directly off the back of dump trucks carrying a load. While most people do not pursue making these drivers pay for their damages, they could if they were able to prove the drivers failed to secure their loads.

If you are hauling gravel on the back of your truck, you run the risk of being the culprit who is guilty of throwing the rocks if you fail to secure your load. Why put yourself at the risk of being liable for the cost of damages and possibly run the risk of even injuring others.

If you are going to haul gardening materials on the back of your truck, take the time and the proper steps to ensure you do so responsibly. Purchase a tarp that will properly fit your truck from a company like Lehman Awning Co. 

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