It's 7:15 and the truck left the yard looking tidy. Pallets tight against the headboard, straps snug, curtain buckled down. The first drop is a café that takes three pallets off the back, and the driver is out of there in ten minutes. Then they pull straight back into traffic for the next stop.
That is the moment most load problems start. Not at the yard, where someone has time to check properly, but after the first drop, when the load the straps were set for no longer exists.
This post is about one habit: doing a quick load securing check again after a partial unload, before the truck moves on. We'll go through what changes, what to look at, and how to get it on record on a phone in a couple of minutes.
Why the first drop changes everything
When a load goes on in the morning, everything is braced against everything else. Pallets lean on each other, the front ones sit hard against the headboard, and the straps are tensioned for that full block of freight.
Take three pallets off the back and a few things happen at once:
- There's now a gap. Whatever was held in place by the pallets behind it can now slide back when the driver brakes at the next intersection, or forward if it's sitting loose behind a gap you can't see.
- Straps that were tight over a full row may now be running over nothing at one end, or sitting at an angle that holds much less than it did.
- The weight has moved. A truck that was evenly loaded can end up heavy on one side or right up the front once the back is empty.
- Someone may have opened a strap to get a pallet out and not done it back up properly, especially if the customer was helping and the driver was busy with paperwork.
None of that is obvious from the cab. And on a busy run, the temptation is to shut the doors and go, because the next customer is already ringing.
What goes wrong when nobody looks
The common stories are pretty ordinary. A half-pallet of drinks topples into the gap and you lose a few cases. A roll cage rolls back and dents the doors from the inside. A strap that was left loose flaps out of the curtain on the motorway.
The less ordinary ones are the reason to bother. Freight that shifts can change how the truck handles in a corner, and a curtain-sider with loose freight pushing on the curtain is a real risk to everyone else on the road. A load that has moved is also a much harder job at the next stop, when the driver opens the doors and something is leaning the wrong way.
The fix takes a couple of minutes, but only if it's a habit rather than something people do when they remember.
The re-check, step by step
Our Delivery Load Securing Check template is built for the pre-departure check, but its tick list works just as well after each drop. Here's how we'd walk through it.
Load within rated capacity. Usually not the worry after a drop, since you've taken weight off. But if the run includes pickups or returns, this is where you think about what's coming back on.
Weight distributed evenly. This is the big one after a partial unload. Look at where the remaining freight sits. If everything left is jammed in one corner, or right at the back of an otherwise empty deck, move it or re-block it before you go.
Restraints / straps secured. Walk the length of the deck and check every strap, not just the ones you touched. Is each one still over freight? Is it tight? Has the ratchet been closed properly? If a strap is now running over empty deck, move it to where the load actually is.
Gates / doors secured. Doors latched, curtain buckles done up all the way along, tail-lift stowed. It's easy to miss one buckle when you're in a hurry.
No loose items in cabin. The delivery dockets, the scanner, the hand truck you threw in the passenger footwell. Anything that can fly around under hard braking shouldn't be loose.
Dangerous goods placards (if required). If you've just dropped the only dangerous goods on board, the placards may no longer apply, and if you're picking some up, they may now be needed. Either way, it's a quick look while you're there.
Then the honest question the form asks: Safe to depart? The options are Yes, or No — re-secure before leaving. If it's no, you fix it and fill a fresh check, rather than ticking yes and hoping.
Filling it on a phone at the kerb
The point of doing this digitally is that it fits in the gap between drops. The driver opens the fill link on their phone, and the form asks for:
- Date and time, so each check is tied to a specific moment in the run.
- Vehicle / run ID. Some teams add the stop number here too, like "Run 14, after stop 2", so the record shows where in the day it happened.
- Driver name.
- The tick list above.
- Safe to depart?
- Issues found / notes, for anything worth mentioning: "moved two pallets forward and re-strapped", "one ratchet sticking, needs replacing".
- Driver signature, done with a finger on the screen.
The required fields mean nobody can submit a check that skips the important parts, and the whole thing takes a couple of minutes once a driver has done it a few times. People who only fill the form don't need an account. They just need the link, which you can save to their home screen.
What the record does for you afterwards
Every submission lands in Reports, so a supervisor can see at a glance which runs had re-checks, which ones flagged a problem, and what the driver did about it.
The notes field turns out to be the useful part over time. If the same run keeps showing "freight shifted after first drop", that's a loading-order problem back at the yard, not a driver problem. Load the first drop at the back, the last drop at the front, and the re-check gets much easier.
When a customer complains about damaged freight, or someone asks how you manage load restraint, you can export the checks as PDF or CSV and show exactly what was looked at, when, and by whom. That's a much better conversation than "the driver says it was fine".
You'll find related templates on the Logistics & transport page, including the Trailer / Plant Pre-start and the Driver Fatigue Self-check, which pair well with this one at the start of a shift.
If you'd like to try it, start a free trial, load the Delivery Load Securing Check from Templates in the builder, and send the fill link to one driver for a week. See what the notes tell you.