Spending a Saturday with Things That COULD Go BOOM!

I  had the opportunity to attend a training session on tanker truck roll-overs today, and it reinforced what had already been my own personal SOP (standard operating procedure): if I see a hazardous material placard, I'm beating feet and letting the younger guys -- who have hazmat Operations or Technician training deal with it. I don't want to step in a puddle of methyl ethyl badstuff.

And if you see any of these on the back of a wrecked truck, or if you see smoke or anything else dripping/leaking/oozing/seeping out of a truck with one of these, don't get near it. Go call 9-1-1.

 



Any truck bearing any of these is NOT somewhere you want to be if you haven't been through a ton of training. I've been doing this kind of thing for 30+ years, and never had the desire to play with stuff that could kill me.

Not that the absence of a placard is any guarantee of safety. Depending on which year it is, the largest transporter of hazardous materials is WalMart, UPS or FedEx... and those are in quantities below the threshold for placarding.