The Complete Handbook of Motor Vehicle Cargo Nets

Chapter 1: Understanding Motor Vehicle Cargo Nets

A motor vehicle cargo net is a load restraint and containment device. Its purpose is straightforward: to convert an open, undefined space in or on a vehicle into a secure cargo hold for objects of varying size and shape. It is a system of interconnected webbing or cord that forms a flexible barrier, anchored to fixed points on the vehicle. The net does not provide an invisible force field; it is a mechanical system whose effectiveness is entirely dependent on its materials, its construction, its anchor points, and the way it is tensioned.

To understand what a cargo net is, you must first understand the environment it works in. The inside of a pickup truck bed, an SUV trunk, or a cargo trailer is a chaotic environment during motion. A simple stop from 60 mph can subject an unsecured 50-pound box to a forward force of over 400 pounds. A 90-degree turn at highway speed can send that same box sliding with devastating force. Even a minor collision, at just 15 mph, can turn loose cargo into projectiles that can crush a passenger compartment or injure a driver. A cargo net is a low-tech, high-reliability solution to this physics problem. It takes the energy of a moving load and distributes it across a wide network of webbing, transferring that force to the structural frame of the vehicle at designated tie-down points.

The concept is simple, but the execution has many iterations. A cargo