Flatbed fall protection is a hot subject for dozens of industries that ship their products the American way - by flatbed trucks.

Many industries have complied with the four-foot OSHA height rule but many have not.

This is because OSHA has not definitively regulated truck loading or tarping and is guided by the John Miles memo internally of tarping next to the building which uses fork lifts or overhead cranes to load.

Next the subject of employer and employee. Washington State and WISHA have endorsed all tarping work to be guided by the four-foot rule.

Here, shown is a method of tarping using netting which has been successfully implemented.

The rule is to hook the netting to the rubrail when standing or walking on the flatbed deck. The rule adopted in many cases is which employer is in the best position to provide protection. Definitely not the trucker or his employer -- so it rests with the premises owner to recognize a hazard on site affecting 5-200 flatbed shipments per day.