Trip planning for HAZ MAT loads.

We have almost exclusively hauled hazmat for the last 10 years. Starting out I would suggest you get yourself a good commercial road atlas! In the front of the book there is a area for each state that shows weight limits, height restriction and Hazmat restrictions. Say you have a load going from Texas to Florida. I would look at all the states I was going to travel through on the Highways that I wanted to run and see if there are any restrictions on these roads. A example would be that Explosives are not allowed through the tunnel on I-10 in Mobile Alabama, so I would have to plan my route around that. With time, you will remember what where and when the hazmat restrictions will detour your route and it will be easier to plan accordingly.

 

Idea 1. Decent road atlas would say haz restricted highways and it will even give you the weights and types of haz that make it a qualified route. Idea 2. (What I do) get a good TRUCKER gps, my rand McNally will let you input truck info and it'll show your route with the legal options, it has a section to input haz load info and will route you accordingly, only once has it failed me but I forgot to instal the update... Or there's always Google and about an hour worth of time researching... Just my opinion tho

 

Well you could do as a driver did in Ohio back in the 90s. He was headed east on I-70 and had the Wheeling tunnel ahead. So he parked in a rest area and walked around his truck closing his placards. When he got back to his drivers door an Ohio Highway Patrol Officer was waiting on him. You can imagine what happened next. Last I saw that driver he was in the back seat of a police car handcuffed.

 

If you're working for a carrier who has been hauling haz-mat for a while, their safety department will be a big help with questions and likely will offer specific routing and direction. It won't be like your out there alone with no support.

It's in their best interest to make sure you don't screw up with a placarded load.

 

Up to date Rand McNally GPS set to HAZMAT. Tons of people will disagree, and you should always pay attention to signage obviously but the reality is the GPS knows everything the Atlas knows (assuming its a Rand) and will usually be more up to date than the Atlas by around Mid year.

 

Have a thorough understanding of how your bill of lading is supposed to be filled out. Dont leave the shipper until you check the BOL and have the correct placards. Most violations are do to improper paperwork and hazmat loads get inspected more often.

 

Just be some ones hero and run it out. Pre trip post trip route plan that's for rookies!