Securement is the word the federal rules use for everything that keeps a load on a truck, and the rules are written in numbers. A load that comes off is a number that was not met, and the numbers are the evidence.
Securement. The containing, immobilizing and tying down of cargo so that it stays where it was put. The federal motor carrier rules give the word a whole subpart, and they open it with two duties. Every commercial motor vehicle carrying cargo on a public road must “be loaded and equipped, and the cargo secured,” so that the cargo cannot leak, spill, blow or fall from the vehicle, and “Cargo must be contained, immobilized or secured in accordance with this subpart to prevent shifting” “upon or within the vehicle to such an extent that the vehicle’s stability or maneuverability is adversely affected” (49 CFR 393.100). The first duty is to the road; the second is to the truck itself, because a load that slides can roll the rig that carries it, the lesson The Tall Load and The Load Behind the Cab teach.
The numbers. The performance rule says how strong the system has to be. Under one test, the forces on the securement devices must “not exceed the manufacturer’s breaking strength rating” when the cargo is subjected to “0.8 g deceleration in the forward direction,” “0.5 g acceleration in the rearward direction” and “0.5 g acceleration in a lateral direction,” each applied on its own; under the other, the forces must “not exceed the working load limit for the devices” at “0.435 g deceleration in the forward direction,” 0.5 g rearward and “0.25 g acceleration in a lateral direction,” again one load at a time; and where an article is not fully contained by the vehicle’s structure, “Securement systems must provide a downward force equivalent to at least 20 percent of the weight of the article of cargo” (49 CFR 393.102). In plain terms, a hard stop throws a load forward with up to eight tenths of its own weight, and the straps have to hold that. Then the rules count. “Cargo must be firmly immobilized or secured on or within a vehicle by structures of adequate strength,” “dunnage or dunnage bags, shoring bars, tiedowns or a combination of these,” and the tie-downs together must carry an aggregate working load limit that “must be at least one-half times the weight of the article or group of articles,” an aggregate the rule counts at half value for a tie-down that runs from the vehicle to the cargo or comes back to the same side of the vehicle and at full value for one that passes over the load to the far side (49 CFR 393.106). For an article not blocked against forward movement, the minimum is “One tiedown for articles 5 feet (1.52 meters) or less in length, and 1,100 pounds (500 kg) or less in weight”; “Two tiedowns if the article is” “5 feet (1.52 meters) or less in length and more than 1,100 pounds (500 kg) in weight” or “Longer than 5 feet (1.52 meters) but less than or equal to 10 feet (3.04 meters) in length, irrespective of the weight”; and “Two tiedowns if the article is longer than 10 feet (3.04 meters),” “and one additional tiedown for every 10 feet (3.04 meters) of article length, or fraction thereof,” beyond the first ten (49 CFR 393.110). And the devices themselves must be “in proper working order when used to perform that function with no damaged or weakened components” (49 CFR 393.104): a frayed strap or a bent hook is not a weaker tie-down, it is a tie-down the rule does not count.
The check. The rules do not stop at the loading dock. “A driver may not operate a commercial motor vehicle and a motor carrier may not require or permit a driver to operate” one unless the cargo “is properly distributed and adequately secured,” and the driver must “Inspect the cargo and the devices used to secure the cargo within the first 50 miles after beginning a trip” and “Reexamine the commercial motor vehicle’s cargo and its load securement devices during the course of transportation,” at a change of duty status, after three hours, or after 150 miles, whichever comes first (49 CFR 392.9). Straps loosen as a load settles; the fifty-mile check exists because the rule’s authors knew it. Inspection is the same idea applied to the machine. Texas adopts the federal rules as its own for the carriers it regulates (37 Tex. Admin. Code Section 4.11), and its own code adds a rule for loose loads: a vehicle carrying them “shall be equipped and maintained as required by this section to prevent loose material from escaping by blowing or spilling,” and for a commercial motor vehicle the choice is two and not three, since the load “shall be covered and the covering firmly secured at the front and back or shall be completely enclosed by the load-carrying compartment” (Transportation Code Section 725.021).
What the law asks. A securement rule broken is evidence of what reasonable care required, and the jury still decides whether care was breached, the caution Negligence Per Se explains; but a rule written in counts and pounds is hard evidence to argue with, because the strap is either rated or it is not, and the count is either met or it is not. The duty is not the driver’s alone. The rule binds the carrier that may not “require or permit” the trip, and the shipper or loader who built the load is answerable for its own work; the fault is divided in whole-number percentages among all of them (Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 33.003; Trucking Company Liability). Where the load lands decides which page of the Docket the case belongs to: in the next lane, Shed; on a dark shoulder, The Shoulder; through a windshield from a truck that drives on, Contact, where the second question is whether the truck can be found at all.
The evidence. A reconstructionist counts. The number of tie-downs against the number the rule requires for that length and weight. The working load limit stamped or tagged on each strap, chain or binder, added up the way the rule counts them, against half the cargo’s weight. The condition of each device, photographed before the scene is cleared. The headerboard, the blocking, the dunnage. The bill of lading that says who loaded the trailer and whether the driver was allowed to see it, since a sealed load is one the driver may be ordered not to open. The driver’s own record of the fifty-mile check and the stops after it. Every one of those belongs to someone else, which is why the first letter asks for them (Spoliation; the black box).
Why the word matters. Securement turns a load that fell from an accident into an arithmetic problem with a right answer. Nothing here is about any one load; the rules are the same on every road, and whether a particular one met them is for its own count to say.
49 CFR 393.100 (paragraphs (b) and (c)); 49 CFR 393.102 (paragraphs (a)(1), (a)(2) and (b)); 49 CFR 393.104 (paragraph (b)); 49 CFR 393.106 (paragraphs (b) and (d)); 49 CFR 393.110 (paragraph (b)), all as posted on eCFR, current to late October 2026; 49 CFR 392.9 (paragraphs (a), (b)(2), (b)(3) and (b)(4)), as posted by Cornell’s Legal Information Institute. 37 Tex. Admin. Code § 4.11 (Cornell LII). Tex. Transp. Code § 725.021 (subsections (a) and (e)) and Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.003 (subsection (a)), as posted on FindLaw, current as of January 1, 2026. This is general information, not legal advice. Text as published at publication.
