HazMat transport/packaging requirements/protocol? (Specifically Class 7)

First and foremost, if there is a more appropriate category for this thread than Questions From New Drivers, please feel free to relocate it...

This is partially a personal curiosity and partially a research thing (I write fiction in the little spare time I have). My current project is a loose extension of an already-published work, loosely based on some of my escapades as an OTR driver, with a little mystery and crime mixed in for entertainment value. It is the second installment of what I hope to be a trilogy of sorts, with a possible fourth. I am indeed a CDL driver, but have little knowledge of HazMat, as I hold no endorsements.

What I am wanting to know, has to do with transportation / packaging protocols for different classes of HazMat, particularly Class 7 (radioactive). I could be wrong, but it seems to me that such dangerous materials might require escort by law enforcement, similar to certain super loads. I also imagine the packaging for such materials would have to be pretty heavy-duty to prevent wanton emissions from such materials, and that no DOT officer will want to inspect such loads beyond proper placards, MSDS and shipping papers, due to their highly dangerous nature.

I am looking to possibly incorporate this into the next project, possibly as a "beginning-of-the-end" for the current one. A little background, my character has been blindsided into working for a sketchy carrier (under a glossy veneer) owned by a crime lord, who uses the trucking company as a means of smuggling contraband and other materials in purported Class 7 HazMat loads. I suppose Class 6 could also serve the same purpose.

Is anyone on here familiar with any such protocols and requirements that would be able to help with information? Again, this is research for a literary project, rest assured, I am not trying to do anything illegal, I'm just going for maximum realism in the finished work.

 

Radioactive with Yellow III label require placards for any quantity.

Radioactive with White I label or Radioactive with Yellow II label don't require placards regardless of quanity.

 

That's a start... What differences are indicated by I / II / III labelling and classification? Do any of these Class 7 / 6 loads require escort or extra protocol for transport? What about packaging and other means of identification?

 

Also there with the yellow Class 7 there are certain authorities along a route that are notified of it's presence as it rolls.

There are not too many nuclear loads but there is a low boy that passes through several times a week with vertical disposal casks from the coast of South Carolina where they are decomissioning a major plant that has now been a super fund clean up site. That waste is probably on way to roughly Nevada near the grand canyon area. The Grand Canyon area contains about half of our Uranium Mines and related within 150 miles.

Many sites from the 80's in nuclear work has been returned to Nature. One in Colorado comes to mind, it's a complete field and hills from nature now. Not a trace of what it once was.

In the truckstop closest to you should be sold a yellow orange book of hazmat with the current year. That is a bible of hazmat of all kinds including nuclear and all other classes. I think it's about 10 bucks. But within that book should be a summary of all current necessary knowledge as given to Truckers to go along with the hazmat loads we use.

I once was endorsed to haul hazmat most of my life and did very well at it until a stupidly bully dispatcher gave me a hard time about the Baltimore Key Bridge bypass as required (It only added 40 minutes to the drive time) and I went ahead and had the DMV take the endorsement off and issue a new CDL based on not having that hazmat. Went back to that dispatcher and told him in front of his boss, LAY OFF my back with your BS complaints about bypassing baltimore with hazmat. Im [profanity] about this far from clocking your teeth.

They gave me another dispatcher, not much of a peep out of him thankfully. I needed some peace and quiet.

The most intense of hazmat loads are munitions going to military depots and bases. Those get pulled off into a special pullout before they even put a wheel onto the base proper for very intense inspection. You can pretty much gaurantee those are escorted. There is too much lethal boom boom inside those trailers like artillery rounds that can be made into gigantic IED's by terrorists really easy.

 

I've hauled and so have a couple of my drivers Yellow III nuke material and we always were escorted, but it wasn't like a pilot car, we were just watched by a couple vehicles while loaded.

Maybe this would help.

https://www.mpcphysics.com/documents/HazmatDOTWorkbook2015.pdf

 

@Call_Me_The_Breeze - I like your premise, but I'd just say Class 6 Poisons aren't on the same level as radioactive placarded loads. I've hauled several placarded loads of Class 6 and see those placards fairly often, but I never see Class 7. Granted, I may just be outside of their typical shipping lanes.

No doubt, those skull-and-crossbones placards make me a little nervous, but I doubt they'd really make a DOT officer decide not to check the load. Good luck with your book!

 

You are over thinking it. The top reason smugglers get caught is the weight variance. Placing a large quantity of dry drugs, or other contraband, inside of a water tight container and then sticking it inside of the shipped material leads to some whacky weight numbers. They fail to compensate properly for the weight or the packaging itself isn't right, which leads to impound/detention and further inspection.

If you'd like a second set of eyes to review your draft, message me and I'll send you my email. I wouldn't want to see the entire thing, just the area you're asking about. Should you want the hook reviewed too, only send me the first chapter along with the area in question.

I was once shipper certified in HAZMAT and have a current carrier certification on my CDL. I've also shipped many things, radioactive and sensitive, through customs while I was with the military going to and coming back from Iraq.