FleetWatch Online - 28-Truckings Molotov Cocktail

Death of a tanker - Tracking the timeline:
This photo essay (courtesy Gary Ronald), depicts the dramatic and dangerous demise of an overturned tanker carrying highly toxic methyl ethyl ketone on the N3 earlier this year. It took emergency services just under three hours to douse the flames and clear the roadway. Despite their sterling efforts, Easter holiday traffic and scores of trucks were waylaid for the duration of the clean-up operation. Add their lost time to the cost of emergency services manpower and equipment and you’re looking at a bill worth millions of Rands.
Matters could have been far worse had emergency services not acted so efficiently. A fuel station situated near the accident scene could quite easily have absorbed toxic fumes and missiles of flaming steel had the tanker exploded, resulting in a disaster too horrendous to contemplate. The cause? Impatient motorists forcied the truck driver to ‘yellow lane drive’. The tanker mounted the armco, ripped the 5th wheel off the truck chassis and flipped over. The lesson? DG drivers should never compromise safety while trying to be courteous. DG vehicles should never drive in the ‘yellow lane’.

The 'Molotov cocktail' or 'petrol bomb' has become synonymous with 'wars of resistance', where groups of people for one reason or another refuse to comply with the 'powers that be' and resort to hurling flaming bottles of petrol and benzene at 'the enemy'. Comparing Dangerous Goods (DG) vehicles to Molotov cocktails may sound a bit dramatic and while politics may have little to do with DG spills and non-compliance, there is a very real battle raging on our roads right now over the safe transport of hazardous material. Paul Collings surveys the DG landscape.

Consider this seemingly innocuous scenario: A DG tanker carrying 21 000 litres of nitric acid parks at a truck stop just outside a major metropolitan area. Alongside the parking area are farmlands where cattle graze and produce is grown. The sun is setting over this peaceful scene while the driver catches up on some much needed rest in his cab, unaware that his tanker has sprung a leak and nitric acid is pouring out onto the tarmac and down into the pasture.

This actually happened, just outside Pretoria on the N1 on Saturday 29 July 2006. According to Tshwane Emergency Services, the N1 was closed on both sides until Sunday, everything within a 2km radius was evacuated (including the cows) and some 20 tons of lime was needed to cover the acid. Environmental services will have to remove contaminated soil.

The why's and the what's
While no one was seriously injured, matters could have been chaotic if the spill occurred in a built-up area. Toxic fumes would have poll axed passing pedestrians and motorists, creating a scene fit for the next Terminator movie. What's really worrying is that this is not an isolated incident. Spills occur almost daily around the country, causing major damage to the environment and threatening life and property.

DG legislation in the Road Traffic Act (RTA) is essentially about ensuring the safe transport of hazardous materials via compliance with regulations governing driver skills levels, vehicle fitness, Transport Emergency card (TREM)/placard presentation and knowledge of DG compatibility and loading characteristics.

While this set of statutes ranks among the most sophisticated in the world, there exists a degree of overlap between various elements of the regulations as a result of updates and a lack of streamlining on the part of the Department of Transport (DoT). This leads to confusion among DG operators as well as traffic officials who have a hard enough job dealing with the vast amount of information governing DG legislation without having to get their heads around certain 'double standards' in the statute book.

Less talk, more action
From a transporter's perspective, pressing issues around the lack of skilled drivers and accredited training institutions continue to hamper safer DG hauliage, as does the fact that lack of DG enforcement allows dodgy operators to undercut their market. Once again, "where is the DG Inspectorate?"

For all the DG 'talk shops', it seems clear that more cohesion is needed across the board. Sure, there are hundreds of DG classified items that have very specific handling requirements but that need not stand in the way of a clear plan of action to prevent spills and DG accidents and generally make DG transport a safer industry.
The following articles in this report analyse the many 'ingredients' in the DG Molotov cocktail right now.