Articles

Stop That, It’s Illegal

It’s not the fine, it’s the liability.

I was at a DOT lecture at the NPSA conference. The point of the lecture was DOT enforcement of moving loaded containers. The lecturer specifically mentioned refrigerated containers, household goods, and office containers as violations.

Office containers are loaded containers, and have to comply with FCMA rules.

If there is anything in the container at all, the four corners have to be on the trailer and the container has to be locked through either the upper or lower corner castings in such a way as to keep the container from moving more than 1″ in any direction. They specifically said the reason you can’t use chains on the lower corner castings is because the container can lift 1″. Lower corner castings have to have a lock down as well as forward and sideways. 

It was very clear and elicited a lot of boos from the audience. Primarily because, how do you in a practical manner chain through the upper corner castings? Have to carry around a ladder or have a trailer with slide-in pins. 

At the 2019 Ohio Freight Conference in Cincinnati, after a lecture on Intermodal freight, I specifically asked the ODOT and the federal DOT lecturers about the same subject. They both referred me to the manual and both said the same thing. 

It only takes one.

I don’t think most state troopers know the rules well enough to stop an office container. But it only takes one. Then, everyone at the station knows. That’s what one of our new customers found—once they got stopped, they got stopped every time they had an office container. We were able to get them a trailer in 30 days, but that was 30 days they didn’t move office containers.

What happens when there’s an accident?

Then there is the whole scary liability that if there is an accident and the load was an office container hanging off the back of the trailer, it is illegal, you know it is illegal, but are doing it anyway because you haven’t gotten caught in the past. You are knowingly violating FCMA rules, will your insurance company cover you? If they do, will they continue to carry you?

Take away the worry. Move loaded containers legally and safely.

The corner locks in every QuickLoadz make it easy to legally lock any loaded container to a bed.

- Sean

They Bought A Trailer After Being Told It Could Move Loaded Containers

I was talking to a new customer who said that they were moving an office container with a tow trailer. They had two feet hanging off the back, something they had done dozens of times before, and that they thought was perfectly legal.

It’s not.

They were almost 300 miles from home when they were pulled over because the end of the container was hanging off the back of the trailer by two feet. The company that sold them the trailer assured them that it was legal. An $11,000 fine, an out of service, a tow, a crane, and a flatbed later, and they were convinced that it was not legal. All told, they thought they had around $13,500 in costs, plus they can’t move their office containers without risking it again.

This container is not fully on the trailer nor is it secured through the corner castings. This is only legal if the container is completely empty.

It is only legal if the container is completely empty.

Anything in the container, and certainly an office trailer or other converted container, is not considered empty. At a conference a DOT official explained it like this:

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“If the container is empty, and by that I mean a completely empty standard container, then the container is the load. If, however, there is anything at all in the container—and this could be a carpet—the contents of the container are the load, and therefore the container has to be completely on the trailer, and secured through the corner castings.”

Here is a summary of the regulation from Securing Loaded Intermodal Containers on Non-Chassis Vehicles:

Section 3.6.3:

“All lower corners rest upon the vehicle,”

Like QuickLoadz does.

“Either chains, wire ropes, or integral devices that are fixed to all lower corners,”

Like the hydraulic corner pin locks that activate instantly by the push of a button on every QuickLoadz.

“Or crossed chains that are fixed to all upper corners,”

That sounds hard, bring a ladder.

Why can most people only move empties?

Because most people can’t comply with these regulations. Let’s look at how a simple trailer loads containers:

The winch takes up space at the front of the bed, so the container doesn’t load all the way. There’s a few feet of container hanging off the back. This container doesn’t meet the requirement that all four corners must be on the bed.

This is a properly loaded container. All four corners are on the bed and the chains are securing the container to the bed. It’s a really great way to move loaded containers if you want your employees to spend an hour in the sun, wind, rain, or snow manually winching and chaining up a container. Not to mention, with the container chained up like that, you can’t open the doors and unload it at a loading dock like you can with QuickLoadz.

QuickLoadz makes it safe and easy to be legal.

QuickLoadz dual chain drive chains pull the container all of the way onto the trailer and then lock it on with the pins through the four corner castings. The dual drive chains then push the container off of the trailer so no part of the container ever needs to hang off of the back of the trailer. This makes moving not only empty containers fast, safe, and easy, but allows you to move loaded sea shipping containers legally.

A QuickLoadz trailer with a container locked in on the bed.

With this ability to move loaded containers you open up an entirely new business line. A lot of companies have tow trailers to move empties, but with QuickLoadz, you can move loaded containers, and charge accordingly. The only other options are cranes at both end—pretty expensive and difficult to coordinate.

In summary:

  1. With QuickLoadz you take a 20 minute long, difficult, dangerous job involving straps, chains, and lots of dragging things around and turn it into 3 minutes of pushing buttons on your cell phone.
  2. With QuickLoadz you don’t run the risk of a huge fine for illegally moving a container with part of it hanging off of the back of the trailer.
  3. With QuickLoadz you open up an entirely new, lucrative line of business in moving loaded containers. Shoot, maybe when one of your competitors gets hit for moving office containers illegally, you can offer them your services.
- Sean

When Phones Had Cords and Smoking Was Good For You

Why are you using a trailer with tech from when phones had cords and smoking was good for you?

There are self driving trucks, but the truck doesn’t carry the freight, the trailer does. And trailers haven’t really changed in 50 years.

Until now.

QuickLoadz is computer controlled and Wi-Fi enabled.

So any driver can operate the trailer from their cellphone. That means in 3 minutes, a driver can load or unload a full sea shipping container without ever leaving their seat in the truck cab.

Do what no one else can do and get paid accordingly.

QuickLoadz is an automatic container mover, but it is also an equipment mover, flatbed trailer and a trailer that can unload itself. All in one.

Cut the cord. Join the 22nd century. Buy a QuickLoadz.

- Sean

With QuickLoadz, Wait Times Go From 3 Hours To 3 Minutes

We estimated that detention is associated with reductions in annual earnings of $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion for for-hire commercial motor vehicle drivers in the truckload sector.

The Department of Transportation, 2018. Link.

DAT research revealed that 63 percent of drivers spend more than three hours waiting for their trucks to be loaded or unloaded on average, often leading to the missing subsequent loads as a result.

DAT, 2016. Link.

Save a billion dollars. Buy a QuickLoadz.

Loading dock wait times are just part of the savings, probably the smallest part.

QuickLoadz builds the only trailer in the world that can, all by itself, load and unload full sea shipping containers without the driver ever leaving their seat in the truck cab in three minutes. Entire 60,000 lb. loads can be picked up and delivered. No waiting on loading docks. With the container and its merchandise sitting on the ground, loading docks aren’t needed.

Turn 3+ hours wait into 3 minutes. Eliminate loading docks, eliminate accidents.

QuickLoadz. Safe, fast, simple, cheap, versatile.

A QuickLoadz trailer at an angle with a shipping container loaded.
- Sean

Another Hurricane

Another hurricane, thousands of containers and trucks rolling into Florida. All of those supplies, all of those trucks waiting. If only there was a freight company with QuickLoadz. Every emergency that company would save FEMA millions. Supplies at ground level where they are needed already in a mini warehouse.

With QuickLoadz, full sea shipping containers can be picked up and dropped off in 3 minutes without any external equipment.

This means that for the first time ever, containers can be cheap portable warehouses. Containers are wind and water tight, so 90% of the world’s freight travels in them.

Portable, cheap, dynamic warehouses are handy for anyone—but especially in emergency situations.

Fleets of trucks with relief supplies get sent into disaster zones. Fleets of trucks, drivers, and relief supplies sit idling waiting to be unloaded.

Line of FEMA trucks backed up on the road.

But where you do unload in the middle of a disaster? With what? Everything is 4′ off the ground in truck beds and in pallets. This picture from the Hurricane Maria disaster shows containers full of supplies sitting on chassis, no way to distribute, nowhere to unload.

With QuickLoadz, containers become the ground level portable warehouse.

People unloading hurricane relief supplies from a shipping container on the ground.

Logistics become simple, fast, and cheap.

Drop the container full of supplies where you need it, when you need it. Driver, truck, and trailer leave in 3 minutes.

  • Load the containers ahead of time, containers don’t care about rain. The containers are the warehouse. Safe, flexible, secure warehouse, wherever you need it.
  • Using QuickLoadz, pick up the loaded containers from ground level with no other equipment needed.
  • Using QuickLoadz, drop the loaded containers at ground level, no need to unload, the container keeps the supplies dry, safe, and secure.
  • No fleets of trailers and trucks that have to be loaded and unloaded. Where do you unload? The supplies are 4′ off the ground stuck in a dry freight van. Not with QuickLoadz and containers. Drop containers loaded with supplies at ground level, leave, bring back more.

Our best-seller for freight, the 60k Super High 40.

- Sean

How To Move A $250,000 Container Full Of Delicate Equipment?

With a QuickLoadz of course. One of our customers builds aircraft landing systems into 20′ sea shipping containers. As you can imagine, they are expensive and delicate.

Our LiftWedges pick up one side of the container 6″, then the Dual Drive Chains pull the truck under the container. No dragging the container or the back of the truck or trailer under the container. No dragging the container or the back of the truck on the gravel or asphalt. With a push of the button the container is locked on and ready to go. No chains, no straps, no winches, no cranes. Fast, safe, easy, cheap.

If QuickLoadz can move a containerized aircraft landing system, I think we can move anything you need.

See how it works:

- Sean

Who Unloads The Self-Driving Truck?

FreightWaves: Daimler ramps up self-driving truck efforts, launches global autonomous group.

Lots of companies are betting big on the self-driving truck. But the truck doesn’t move freight, the trailer does.

There is only one company in the world that builds a trailer that can automatically load or unload a 60,000 lb. container all by itself in three minutes. There is only one company in the world that is poised to revolutionize freight and logistics.

QuickLoadz is so advanced that it operates from the driver’s smart phone. It is so automated that the driver never has to leave their seat in the truck cab.

That means that QuickLoadz is an off-the-shelf solution for autonomous delivery of 60,000 lb. containers full of merchandise.

QuickLoadz exists now, is picking up and delivering full sea shipping containers every day all over the world.

Whomever marries QuickLoadz with the autonomous truck wins freight.

Would you like to be a part of that?

Click to see how QuickLoadz changes the world of freight:

- Sean

Customer Success Story: Scaffolding Company

I have a mom and pop scaffolding company that bought a QuickLoadz a while ago.

They are good at math, and so it was an easy sale. They used to have a fleet of box trucks and lots of warehouse space. Now they have one QuickLoadz and cheap, cheap storage containers.

Containers are so cheap that they keep common job sizes of scaffolding in containers. They keep all of their containers sitting on the ground so they can just shuffle from one container to another to make exactly what goes to a job. They can load a job a week in advance because it isn’t like having a box truck tied up for a week, it’s just a $1,000 container sitting on the gravel waiting to take its load to the next job.

Now, instead of constantly loading from their warehouse into box trucks, then unloading scaffolding from a box truck 4′ off of the ground at a job site, they just pick up the pre-loaded container from their gravel lot, drop it off on the job site, and access it from ground level. No more needing the warehouse space for stacks of scaffolding. Now they use their warehouse space for repairing and making new scaffolding. Plus, the containers work out to $3/sq. ft., whereas the warehouse space is $30/sq. ft. They don’t pay property tax on the containers. They don’t pay insurance on the containers. As they get more business, they just buy more $3/sq. ft. containers instead of building more $30/sq. ft. warehouse.

Then they got the bright idea to lease the container to the contractor after they unloaded their scaffolding. Now they are getting paid to have a 8′ × 20′ billboard for their scaffolding company on these job sites. Then, they started leasing containers to contractors whether they were renting scaffolding or not. They already had a customer base to market to. They instantly added a whole new line of business without trying. Great ROI on renting containers, plus, they still get paid to have their scaffolding company billboard on the job site. They are going to move into container job site offices next.

They are looking to expand by simply renting gravel lots in nearby towns. They don’t need to rent a warehouse, they don’t need loading docks any more. With QuickLoadz, they can move jobs around easily, expand easily. 3 minutes to move a loaded container, without the driver ever leaving their seat in the truck cab.

Amazing. Made me smile when they told me about it.

How many trucks and how much warehouse space can QuickLoadz eliminate for your business?

- Sean

I Did It; Everyone Did

When there was nothing else available, everyone bought the old fashioned tilt and tow trailer that someone has welded a couple of side rails on and called a container mover.

What else were you going to do? But things have changed. Now, there is a trailer designed to move sea shipping containers.

Why would you buy a trailer designed to move cars instead of a trailer designed to move containers?

If you were a tow company and maybe 95% of what you did involved towing cars, then maybe, just maybe, it would be worthwhile buying a tow trailer instead. I say maybe, because QuickLoadz can:

  1. Also tow cars.
  2. See what’s behind you with its Wi-Fi rearview camera.
  3. Control itself with smartphone remote control hydraulics, entirely from the cab of the truck.
  4. Unload itself of pallets, cars, car parts, etc. with an optional tow bar.
  5. Use twice the power of any other trailer on the market with its 38 HP Kohler EFI engine. Technically, it is probably the only trailer you can operate legally in CARB states. An EFI engine is required in California and 12 others, with more being added every year.
  6. Come factory ordered with hot dip galvanizing. Really, what destroys a trailer faster than rust? What is a better rust protection than dipping an entire trailer into molten zinc?

But you don’t spend 95% of your time moving cars, you spend 99% of your time moving containers. So buy the only trailer in the world that can:

  1. Automatically move loaded sea shipping containers. No other company in the world is close to being able to offer this, and you can have it now.
  2. Automatically, at the press of a button, lock that container onto the trailer. How lazy would your driver have to be not to do that?
  3. Not destroy the customer’s asphalt or concrete by dragging the container and/or the trailer bed across it. QuickLoadz floats on big rollers. What is that expense?
  4. Legally move loaded containers. You know those office containers you move? Illegal, unless it is entirely loaded on the trailer. Federal law dictates all four corners on the trailer, secured by the corner castings. We have picked up a couple of customers who have discovered this the hard way—at a weigh station, accompanied by a huge fine. This fine alone is worth more than the price difference between even the most janky bottom of the barrel trailer and QuickLoadz. Let alone, you can no longer move office containers without the risk of another fine.

Mobile storage companies that have bought QuickLoadz have seen production double, and driver retention is at 100%. Try topping that with some trailer that hasn’t changed since 1972.

Last, we are within a couple of thousand dollars of other serious commercial trailer manufacturers, like Landoll. I know you can buy a Landoll knockoff for a lot less, but then you have a cheap knock-off tow trailer masquerading as a container mover.

Bottom line: If you move containers, it simply makes no sense to buy anything other than QuickLoadz.

- Sean

Unmet Demand

Mobile Mini, the nation’s largest mobile storage business, can’t move loaded sea shipping containers either for customers or themselves. This is huge unmet demand.

Two of the emails we received one day last week were people looking to move loaded sea shipping containers in different parts of the country. What is slightly different from the hundreds of emails like this that we receive is they both deal with the largest container rental company in the United States, Mobile Mini.

First from a contractor:

Hi David,

 

I really appreciate that, thank you so much for the info. The container we have on site is a Mobile Mini container, and that’s exactly the issue—they won’t move it loaded, we will need a container on the new site, and we still need to move the items to the new location—trying to find an efficient and somewhat economical way to achieve these goals.

[Redacted]

Corporate & Project Operations Coordinator

Contractors everywhere have this problem.

They don’t want to unload a container, put all the stuff into a truck, store it at a warehouse, pay to get the container moved, reload a truck, then unload it into the container at the new site. Yet, unless they have a crane or access to something similar, that is what they have to do. If only they had a QuickLoadz… or if only they could call someone who has a QuickLoadz.

This second email is actually from someone looking to have loaded 20′ containers moved for them:

Sean,

[Redacted] gave me your contact information. I am looking for pricing on freight from [redacted] for loaded 20 ft storage containers (8X20′). They will be loaded full in [redacted] and will be coming to my ops yard in [redacted].

I am interested in shipping (2) 20 footers at a time.

Can I have pricing on this request?

Thank you!

Best regards,

[Redacted]

[redacted]@mobilemini.com

That email is from Mobile Mini. If the nation’s largest storage company can’t move loaded sea shipping containers, not only for their customers but for themselves, there is real opportunity there.

Buy a QuickLoadz, move empty containers, move cars and equipment and freight, but most of all…

Do what no one else can do and move loaded sea shipping containers. Competition is for losers.

Have 100 seconds to see how to move two 20′ containers on a 40′ bed?

- Sean