Winseer:
Sometimes I wonder if the ADR “Training” does anything like inform the driver on what the real dangers of different substances are.Ammonium Nitrate on it’s own is pretty harmless. Mix it with any powder though, and it becomes as dangerous as gunpowder. “Any powder” includes fluff, brick dust, and indeed normal human dust.
Instead of banging on with “Oxidizing Agent” labels, it might be better if people were told to keep this away from warm, dry, dusty places - rather than “keep away from fire risks such as wood and paper” or “keep away from sources of ignition” which doesn’t tell anywhere near enough of the story.
How many people think the big danger from “Hydrofluoric Acid” is “It’s a strong acid, causes burns, highly dangerous to skin” etc etc.
That’s not it at all. The danger from HF is contact fluoride poisoning. The fluoride ion attaches itself to calcium, primarily found in teeth and bones - and converts things like Calcium Phosphate into Calcium Fluoride. This, in turn causes the degradation of bones within the body, and the person ends up dying as if they’d had a compound untreated fracture of the type one gets when being caught up in an explosion.
By implying it’s the “Acid” aspect of this substances that represents the danger - people are lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that upon getting this stuff on the skin - it doesn’t hurt, doesn’t seem to burn straight away, and the sense of imminent peril is reduced - with deadly effect.In my mind then - the entire ADR course should be modified to bring drivers up to speed with the FULL dangers of what they are carrying. If that means employing drivers that effectively have Chemistry qualifications - then so be it. If this were nuclear material - we wouldn’t be having this conversation. If enough care can be taken there, then why not across the entire dangerous goods spectrum?
I agree about the labelling. It’s hilarious. The “cargo aircraft only” label is a Picasso style bloke standing in front of a cubist drawn (is it an aeroplane or train, I don’t know) vehicle waving his ten foot hand. I meant, what the actual?
A lot of what you’re describing is relevant to packing, declaration, storage and loading. Not the actual driver. Is it relevant for a driver? Too much info can be a dangerous thing. I think in my experience the dangers lie in packing, delegation and loading. That’s where all the ■■■■ ups I’ve seen have happened. Knowing the fine details of an “grenade, fragmenting” have not helped. Not from the drivers seat.
I flew dangerous goods on freighters and we were IATA DG trained. It mainly consisted of training an awareness of all the nasties only to serve as a reminder of how our various deaths could be caused. It seemed of no practical use other than that. We got the message from the various accident reports.
The real detail was packing groups, excepted cargo, segregation, isolation. Even that wasn’t relevant and a right yawnathon really. We wouldn’t check 120 tonnes of cargo for packing labels or UN numbers as that wasn’t our remit and this info wouldn’t save us. We looked for leaks and smells and noted locations of things like explosives, maybe thinking outside the box to make sure they weren’t next to Chinese lipo batteries. Pretty basic.
The most important thing and the only thing we’d actually do in a “brown trouser situation” was how to read the emergency response codes. In practicality what this meant was so should something happen, we could do the very limited we could but pass on the right info to the right people on satcom who could help us. I think that’s the aim of the game with drivers. What are you going to do with a fire extinguisher on a lorry? I suppose if something spills on a lorry, get everyone away and yourself and ring for help.
