Hauling haz-mat in the trunk of a car?

Hello, I'm new around here... but seems to be plenty of info flowing around here so perhaps I'll start stopping by.

I run a local hot shot service, mostly straight trucks but we also have couriers in pickups, vans, and cars.

I have always gone by the rule to only haul haz-mat (of course only shipments less than 1,000lbs) in the back of a pickup truck. I have a customer that refuses to load any hazmat in a car or van because it shares the same air space with the driver, so we've just always only used pickup trucks if it's a small haz-mat shipment.

Now I'm having a disagreement with a different customer that says you can haul haz-mat in the trunk of a car. I know you can't haul compressed gas in a trunk for sure, but I'm not clear on other materials.

As far as I can tell maybe different materials have different rules about being in a trunk of a car. Basically I'm looking for a list of what you can or can't haul in a car. I believe most of the shipments in question now are class 9 and probably okay, I just can't seem to find the exact rule on this.

On that same note we also disagree on whether or not it's okay to haul haz-mat in an open bed pickup (no camper shell... with it tied down of course.) I'm under the assumption that this is okay, but my customer refuses to load an open bed pickup for fear that it could fly out in an accident.

 

Why don't you not make the assumption that I'm not doing things legally? (hence why I'm asking this question... if I wasn't concerned about the rules I wouldn't be asking these questions.) We are a fully registered hazmat carrier and follow all of the rules. Our straight truck Class B drivers are Hazmat certified and have jumped through all the hoops to be legal including re-training every 2 years.

The shipments that I have in question are usually less than 100 lbs just a few boxes. I know without a doubt it is legal to haul these in the bed of a pickup truck, I'm unclear if it's okay in a car. Since you have already "learned these things" perhaps you can enlighten me by helping me answer my questions?

 

The main issue is the response time, not the price. The up charge from a car to truck on this particular run is less than $10. It's about a 30 mile local trip and they like to have it picked and delivered within about an hour from calling in. I've got a lot of vans and a few cars, but not as many pickup trucks. We've always waited until we have a pickup truck available because I thought you couldn't put hazmat in the same airspace as the driver and have been told that a car trunk is considered the same airspace. The other customer I have that has always insisted on pickup trucks only commonly ships small amounts of oxidizer. The stuff in question is usually Class 9... some sort of pharmaceutical ingredients I believe.

Technically I would say that me and the customer are both professionals having a disagreement on what the law is here. He is the head of shipping for a company that ships lots of hazardous materials, so we should both know the rules.

Basically he's willing to ship it in a car and it delivers to the same company at a different branch so the shipper & receiver is okay with it in a car. I'd say the chances of an unmarked car ever getting stopped by the DOT is none since it hasn't happened to anyone in my 10 years working here. I just would like to know what the actual law is on this, but maybe the world may never know.