Hazmat test

I have spent time around chemical plants (used to load and unload at one every day) and now deal with Hazmat on a nightly basis. Segregation regulations are fine - obviously it's not a good idea to load class 3 and class 1 together and some other combinations. I run into segregation rules a lot because we're consolidating LTL shipments.

I understand the intentions of placarding - communicate the risk, but it misses the mark to me. Kinda related to my example above, a first responder would see a trailer with a corrosive placard and all it tells him is there is more than 1001 lbs of class 8 in the trailer. If there is a class 8 with an ID number, all that tells him is that it's bulk packaging - it could be 8 full totes weighing 24,000 or an empty one weighing 100 lbs. I could have 24,000 lbs of corrosive liquid but if it's PGIII, I don't need any placards even though that clearly causes more of a hazard than my empty tote. I'll stand by my statement that they're overly complex and don't necessarily communicate what exactly is in the trailer. The placard any amounts like the inhalation hazards 2 & 6 and dangerous when wet are correct in my opinion though.

My example of what can and can't go through the tunnel and the route around it is just plain stupid. Minimize the danger? It is far more dangerous and more likely to result in a Hazmat incident running around the tunnel on a nasty two lane road. Another one - on I495 (Capitol beltway) I have to stay in the right two lanes with all the merging, weaving, and exiting traffic whereas if I'm not placarded, I can use all the lanes except the far left. Seems to me it would be safer to stay away from the merges with my Hazmat.

I've been working around and hauling the stuff for over 6 years now and yes, I think the Hazmat laws are largely stupid. They do not really do two of the things they're intended to do - communicate the risk, and minimize the danger. The two aforementioned rules place me and the public more in harms way more than anything.

 

It's a good thing to have - I would recommend every driver have it. If nothing else, it makes you more marketable. You may get the fuel hauling or LTL job over someone else because you already have it.

 

A personal story:

I pulled an "empty" tanker in to a tank wash in Savannah several years ago and two guys got in the tank and only ONE got out. Fortunately, I was told to drop the tank and pick it up later, so no liablity on my end.

Started flatbedding after that....

 

I don't see what that has to do with what I've been saying. Company procedures should have prevented this from happening - besides, the placards would have still been on the tank so two guys and their company should have followed proper procedure.

This still has nothing to do with tunnels on the Pa pike or lane restrictions on 495. I'm not gonna stick my head in an empty tote with a class 6 ID number on it but that would be less dangerous than drinking pesticide which is also a class 6 but requires no placards when it's transported in PGIII, even though that empty tote could have last contained the same substance.

Truckers crack me up - all these huge stories and if I had seen what they have seen..lol.. I'm just a 29 year old 62 MPH steering wheel holder that had to go up and down a mountain on an unplowed two lane road after getting off a wet Pa Pike because I had one 100 lb empty tote that last contained class 8. After getting stuck on the way up, creating an unsafe situation for all other motorists, I got to go down the other side gaining speed because every time I hit my brakes I could read the side of the empty back box.

Clearly I know nothing and my opinions are that of a misguided rookie..lol..

 

atleast once a month i unload a trailer with poision and foodstuffs on it...one time a guy had a skid of poison loaded on top of a skid of rice

 

Big no no there.. We're required to write food or poison on the manifest and check through the bills before we load either one. Seems to have fixed the problem - with inhalation hazards we wait till the end of the night and find a trailer it can go in before we load it.

 

I think it's stupid to have to stop at RR tracks . Most of them curve on one side of the other and a train would be real close and you still wouldn't see it . I can see reducing speed before a signal but stopping doesn't make sense .

 

C'mon big story truckers.. I'm still waiting for someone to really prove that the current Hazmat regs do what they're intended to do.

Contain the material - why is a deadly amount of inhalation hazard packaged in a cardboard box?

Communicate the risk - dude has no clue what is really in my trailer by looking at my placards.

Minimize the danger - the regs have me driving on a road that should never see a set during the winter months.

My big time trucker stories are I've watched a box of inhalation hazard 2 get crushed on the dock, no injuries just a quick evacuation - obviously the containment rules didn't work or the material would not have been in a cardboard box, and a treacherous trip on the happy trail because I had an empty tote - clearly posing a greater risk to motorists than me going through the tunnel so no danger was minimized..

So before anyone tells me I just need to see what they've seen, or I just don't understand, please tell me how the current regs really do as their intended without any giant trucker BS that has nothing to do with the point..

 

I forgot that one - the absolute dumbest of them all. There was a set I always had to stop for that had a wide field of vision for the train that crossed at 2 MPH once per year. Always struck me as being far more dangerous stopping on a downhill, and trying to accelerate uphill while tying up all that traffic.

Seems like another stupid Hazmat reg to me - in no way does that minimize the danger.. I would be 10 fold more likely to cause an accident by stopping than I would be getting hit by a train..

 

thats the way it should be but they are to busy writing people up for going to the bathroom without permission to discipline the idiots who load hazmat wrong, dont sign it off as hazmat or dont sign it off at all

atleast once a week i unload a trailer with a hazmat shipment that was not written off as hazmat...alot of the time the shipment itself isnt wrote off at all