When a hazmat tanker parks next to you at the truck stop?

I don’t worry about extremely low probability events.

 

When I think Anhydrous Ammonia I think of this from a few years ago.
Deadly truck explosion in south Arkansas heard for miles, leaves crater in highway

 

One thing Mythbusters has taught me is to never assume what is and isn't explosive and dangerous.
For example shoot a propane bottle? All it does it put a hole in the bottle and the propane dissipates.
Toss a lit cigarette into gasoline? It's not going explode as the air/fuel mixture is bad.
Light some cornstarch on fire, and you have a fireball.

 

most hazmat tankers are either corrosive or combustible, those placards don't mean instant death. there is some nasty stuff that can burn your skin, sometimes quick but a lot of the time it's designated corrosive just because of a certain pH, water treatment chemicals. salt water is 'corrosive'. plain water to ferrous metal is even 'corrosive'. there's just differing degrees of how corrosive, all the cleaning chemicals in the janitors closet will cause severe skin burns and severe eye irritation, same with most tanker commodities, just 6000 gallons of it in one spot.

combustible loads are a lot of times petroleum fuel additive that gets mixed into a fuel blend at a refinery, it wouldn't ignite if you held a lighter against it.

even flammable placards don't always mean it's a bomb, there's one product that's like animal fat mixed with just a little alcohol to keep it soft in solution, the alcohol carrier makes it have to be placarded flammable

there is some really volatile stuff like acrylate (you can smell it a mile away), smells like nail polish, but tankers all have two valves, even in roll overs they sometimes don't spill as long as the wash caps are tight and everything is shut

i'm nervous around gasoline tankers because of videos I've seen, if you see the red placards that are all red with a white 3, that's flammable, could be alcohol, could be acrylate, that stuff is all flash fire. if acrylate ignites you won't even get a chance to realize there's danger before it flashes into a 100 foot fireball, faster than gasoline

if it's a red placard with the white bottom half and a red 3 that's combustible, that stuff isn't volatile and a lot of times only placard because of RQ 'reportable quantity', over a certain gallon amount shipped at once. usually fuel additives

truck stop food and poor posture is more hazard to your health than cursory exposure to most chemicals parked next to you, there are acid placards too but again just because it says acid doesn't mean it's the stuff you kill a toon with, it could be, but it also could be 6000 gallons of orange juice

 

You know in the movies when they spill gasoline all over then take a cigarette and ignite it? Yeah that doesn't happen..
If parking next to hazmat was an issue the government would have mandated something for it

 

they have

Hazardous Materials Parking And Routing | High Road Online CDL Training

 

Yeah, I discovered that 202 by accident. I didn’t see a no hazmat sign on it so it must be good.

 

My driving style doesn't change at all when I go from hauling 52k lbs of asphalt to hauling 9-10k gallons of propane...only thing that changes is the fact that I can't go through tunnels with shiny red placards

 

If a tanker of ammonia or acid opens up in the parking lot and empties you think it’s only going to effect the truck next to him? I’m more concerned with the hazmat load coming towards me down the road with a million variables between him & myself not the guy safely parked for the night.

 

I do all summer long unless I can find a spot to park next to a lake or river. In the winter I’m usually hauling propane.