Wherever I drive on the highway I always can see those billboards at the road side, all of them are ads for something, the art work usually is impressive, I guess that’s what it is, people will have to pay good money for the billboards out there, especially in populated area, sometime the publicity can make it or break it.

I never had the chance before to look at the back of the billboards, I only see those steel frames, then I believed they use some kind of steel tie down to hold the boards in position, since the boards look huge and needs some kind of strong devices to tie them down. Of course, the reality will always have some surprise for you.

Recently I had the chance to see how the billboards were installed. Most interesting is that what they used to tie the boards down, and that is something I never believe I would think of. They use 1” ratchet straps to tie the boards down! And to my surprise, the breaking strength on the strap is merely 2200 lbs. Of course this is  not the heavy load on the trailer which requires 10,000lbs or stronger straps, but 1” strap looks a little bit weak to me. I asked the question and the people installed the boards told me that 10 such kind of straps will hold more than 10,000lbs stuff under strong wind.

It seems to me that we have to look deeper than we thought to find interesting truth.

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