“Bring paperwork inside” at scalehouse

Yes when you leave the truck. But if you are being inspected you will need the BOL.

 

I can speak to this from the Fire Department/First Responder side of things.
We are all trained to first look for placards from a safe distance, and then look it up in the Hazmat book every fire truck carries.
Depending on what we find, we either run away screaming (try to keep up lol) or we move closer taking proper precautions.
The next thing we seek out, especially if it's a multi placard load, or the placards are unreadable, is the BOL.
And we are taught that we will ALWAYS be able to find the BOL in the Driver's door pocket, or on the driver's seat.
So anything other than that means that First Responders are unable to find the BOL in the designated location.

Now let's assume that you pull up to the scales, grab the stack of paperwork and walk into the scale house, and while you are waiting, someone scrapes your truck and knocks a valve off and now it's leaking on the ground.
Meanwhile you finish your chat with the officer and head to the restroom, while the Hazmat team is arriving trying to locate the paperwork, and unable to find you.
Alternatively, you have a heart attack from the long walk, or you mouth off and get arrested, and no one realizes that you are the Hazmat driver.

Or the more grizzly reason why they made that law, you are out of the truck with the BOL in your back pocket, and you turn the wrong valve and get killed by the Hazmat substance, and now you are lying in a puddle of ethyl methyl bad stuff, on top of the paperwork.
They may be able to get to the cab using SCBA, but they aren't going to wade into the puddle to find the paperwork.

So basically in case anything happens to the driver, or the driver simply steps away, the paperwork is always supposed to be in the designated location so that when they show up and can't find the driver, they can pop the window and find the paperwork.

So while a little bit mean, yes, citing a driver who doesn't have the paperwork in the door or on the seat is reasonable, because anyone who takes the paperwork out of the truck is showing a lack of understanding of the reason WHY it's supposed to be left there, and they need to learn that lesson.

So always leave a copy in the truck, k?
It's a pretty simple thing to do really lol

 

Someone marketing to Snowflakes.

 

With any Hazmat ( Dangerous goods) load the Bol with the description of the cargo must remain in the truck at all times usually required to visible in the hazmat procedures pouch this is so if any issue arised where by a hazmat team is required to fight a fire or chemical spill they know what their dealing with. So you should have a copy of your cargo or just take a photo with your camera phone this should be sufficient to keep the DOT happy.

 

Used to carry Dry Van freight BOL('s) into Scale Houses in a Briefcase.
Had a few "officers" ask about what else was in the Briefcase.
I generally answered nothing that applies to this visit and no problem(s).
- - - -
For the Beer Posts:
I never liked just Beer. Tasted like Vomit (which is what usually happened later).
Always had to "improve taste with Tequila or Bourbon or Whiskey" to effect Boilermaker In A Can.
That was waaayyy before I succeeded in holding a Class-A License.

CHEERS!!

 

With the ever changing Haz Mat laws, most of the large [and possibly now merged or defunct] tank carriers used to product their own 'bill of lading' set up for all the products from all the shippers that may be on board. They went to extensive lengths to keep the product descriptions up to date and that document was their POD/ invoice/ mileage record and would be enough to stay behind on the door or seat as the shipper's documents could then be brought inside. At Matlack we trained the driver to present the shipper's papers on top at an roadside inspection.

Problem is that some LEO will be easily confused, especially with the variety of non hazardous shipping papers.

A NY Trooper got one of 3 loads of transformer oil on a non-truck route also wrote us up for no placards, etc. thinking that transformer oil 'should' be a haz mat and placarded.

The driver presented the oil company's papers on top and the trooper did not examine our bill underneath as he jumped off imagining he has caught us being dirty.

Before court I told him that it was non hazardous and presented a copy of Matlack's bill with the 'HM' column unchecked and he dismissed everything except the off route commenting that if he had seen our bill, he would not have issued the additional tickets...

 

A LEO get confused? Never!

 

After 25 years of driving hazmat in SoCal I Just do what the inspector tells me to do. I’ve never had a problem when doing what I’m told.
If the truck catches fire while you’re twenty-five feet away why the heck would you run to the truck and grab the paperwork when the two of you are standing safely outside holding the darn thing.