Flip placards... is it legal...?

Well, the whole point of this thread to begin with was to determine if I can get away with numbered flips (leaving the numbers blank - showing a white rectangle in the middle of the placard) when I have a dozen UN numbers of the same class so I could do 4 numbered flips on each side for my convenience. I am done fighting the placard battle on company trailers(not to mention all the damage and lack of maintenance)......... I have come down to 1 numbered, 1 worded and 2 standard blow away type placard hangers. It's not real often but I can think of a few times this year that the shipper ran out of a certain placard or I pick up empty totes and the broker or whoever didn't fedex all the placards (2 weeks ago, food processor had 8 totes and 45 drums, all empties - 6 placards needed and only had 5 sent to them... not their fault since they were just loading them and don't deal with hazmat shipping).... I think it was a CHR load. Anyway, it wouldn't have been a big deal had I been pulling a trailer with flips. It would be convenient to have the option of 4 flip placards with un numbers AND be able to use em for worded placards also when no un's need to be displayed (and to many un's to list). My trailer is a reefer and I am pretty much limited to 4 placards because of space on the front.

 

actually no, all trailer load. However, many loads require multiple placards. Most of my loads are mixed between class 3, 5.1 and 8... all depends on what is ordered. I get lucky occasionally and it's all one class but not often.

 

This is where I appreciate the fact that I am leased to Landstar... a few loads had me scratching my head as far as what placards I needed. Snap a pic of the bol and email it to the hazmat dept and they shoot back the requirements. I picked up a hazmat load a while back from Ecolab and they swore it didn't require the normal hazmat description, class, pkg grp, etc. It wasn't even maked hazmat in the column. However, it required placards... ?? I argued that the bol needed to be changed. Turned out that the only thing wrong was a "less than or equal to" symbol in the commodity part of the bol. Yes, placards required, no the bol didn't designate the product as hazmat. I got level 1 inspected in Ohio and it took a while but he agreed with the placards and non-hazmat paperwork.
I can't remember what the chemical was now but it was in 80 drums.
It's the only load I have ever hauled like that. But, even the shipper was a little wrong. Over-think and question everything... yes, I am that pain in the ### guy until I am satisfied it is correct - EVERY TIME.