CA: Citation for parking on interstate on/off ramps

you really expect any driver with more than 2 days experience to believe that you can tell dispatch down to the hour when you will deliver a load that is going say 2000 miles?that is great in theory but traffic,weather,blown tire to many things to list can change that.sometimes youy just have to roll with what is happening.

unless you are one of them solar powered drivers that drive 5 hours a dat and take 2 weeks to go 2000 miles then i guess you could

 

Cough.....cough....cough......30 years of driving truck...28 of those years exclusive to the "petrochemical" industry and haz-mat....and the only substances I know of that require a 3 mile evacuation radius, are radioactive substances and hydro-cyanide gas.

Sludge is the liquefied solids left-over from the refining of crude oil, yes. It contains sulphuric acid, yes. But..even back in the 70's, the sulphuric was neutralized for shipment. Especially in CA.

Now...venting haz-mat into the atmosphere is bad. But come on now...there are plenty of things out there, that are far more dangerous than sludge, which is a fairly benign waste product, that when processed properly, yields a few more dollars of profit to both the generating company and the disposal company.

One of the bigger decisions a driver of haz-mat has, is, Just how much information does one impart about the product, to outside "individuals". Sometimes it is best to withhold just a smidgen of information. That smidgen can make the difference between cooler heads prevailing, and mass hysteria by people whom lack the smallest amounts of common sense.

Oh yeah...that sludge you mentioned...it's most commonly called "coker-sludge", because of the unit it comes from. The "coke" is dried out and refracted, to be used for things like steel manufacturing, alumina production, and fuel for driers at cement manufacturing plants. The spent sulphuric, after being removed from the sludge, and cleaned of contaminants, is reprocessed and becomes pure sulphuric acid, again. Like I said..........the generator and the disposer both make a few more dollars of profit.

 

Well I run refer and I agree with him. Been driving for 16 yrs and doing refer for the last 10. Never had to or would park on an on/off ramp. Remember the 7 P's

Prior
Propper
Planning
Prevents
Piss
Poor
Performins.

 

Yes I do. Because I do it every trip. If there is a delay on the road which holds me up I tell them there is a adjustment to the del time. But unless there is a problem caused by weather that closes a raod. Thats not going to happen. I allow 2hrs for traffic problems every day. 16yrs and NEVER late on a del. If I say it will del at 8am Monday. Then that IS when it del's.

 

then you are not doing it down to the hour as you stated.you are giving extra time so you are early if nothing goes wrong.that is different and the way to be done.

sometimes you have exact appointments with barely enough time to get there and if it is middle of the night when you get loaded then by the time you can get somebody on the phone to change the appointment then it is to late.nobody is perfect i do not care how hard you try to be or how much preplanning you do.

anybody who tries to act like they are perfect and never messed up are as full of it as it comes or have not been out there more than a week.

to many variables for it to be perfect all the time.

 

Ok....knowing now that you were actually hauling it for Rhone-Poulenc (now known as Rhodia), makes a little difference. Rhone-Poulenc got themselves legislated out of business for stupid stuff like transfering coker-sludge without neutralizing the sulphuric acid. They had a nifty little stunt of trying to pass that crap off as "safe for transport", which it was not. The sulphuric acid was supposed to be neutral (soda ash added) for transport.

The purpose of the "Sulfonation" plant, is to separate the sulphuric acid compounds out of the coke sludge. Instead of putting money into a new facility, they were obviously using the trucking company you worked for as a shield, hauling it down to their Wilmington plant, while it was still active, where it was processed. LOL.....someone wasn't telling you just how deep in the "dodo" you were placing yourself, were they? Not only would your boss have gotten into trouble, you as the driver could have, as well. California actually started the entire "driver is accountable" process.

You were right as to what the crap was doing...but it still was not, and is not, as dangerous as they were leading you to believe (there really are worse things than sulphuric acid fumes). They were, in essence, getting you to willfully drive over hours, so that Rhone did not have to spend money on soda ash.

The fumes were what they had an aversion too. The fumes from sulphuric are just as bad as the liquid. They strip skin from your body, boil flesh, eyes, and lungs. And Rhone was happy to risk that, to save a few thousand dollars in material and processing costs. Unlike liquid, the rubber suit is less affective against active sulphur fumes. That is where the full-body protective suit comes in...the one you see in the movies. You suit up in that, with live air, then get glued in, to seal it from outside atmosphere. As a transport driver, they knew you could not get suited up like that, by yourself, so they placed the "fear of god" in you, and you drove over hours. I'm betting your boss knew.

So...all-in-all, you are right about what the Fire Department would do, as fas as evacuations.....once the fumes start traveling, they go down wind, and collect in low areas.

Funny stuff sulphuric acid. It is a by-product of oil refining, that is most recognized for being used in automotive batteries, yet when re-processed far enough, AFTER the oil refining process, pharmaceuticals, plastics, and fertilizers are all made from it.

You mix soda ash into it, and sulphuric becomes benign, and easily handled. Process the soda ash out (the soda ash is then used in fertilizer), process out the remaining hydrocarbons from the coking processes, add small amounts of fresh sulphuric acid, and walla...more, useable sulphuric acid.

Rhodia...the company that remains from the dismantling of Rhone-Poulenc...It's primary business today is Hazardous Waste disposal, and Sulphuric Acid reprocessing.......Go figure.

Other components of Rhone-Poulenc, were folded into the Rohm & Hass Chemical company (soon to be a division of Dow Chemical), Bayer CropSciences (which is why Bayer is into fertilizers and pesticides today), Kemira Chemical (a company the makes water treatment chemicals) and Hexion Chemical....a "Specialty" chemical manufacturer.

Rhone-Poulenc wasn't the only company that "cheated" with hazardous waste. There are plenty of company's right now, that "cheat" in one form or another, to save 20 cents on the pound.

 

LOL you shouldnt be getting points for parking.. last i checked it was only moving violations.