Courier Business Stuff

With the firework season nearly upon us there’s an enormous demand from the firework distributors for large numbers of hauliers and same-day couriers to carry out their deliveries over a very short period.

Considering the obvious hazards of firework transportation, and indeed every aspect of the manufacture, storage and transportation of fireworks, it might be expected that firework manufacturers and distributors would be more careful than most in checking the qualifications and experience of the transport companies they use for their deliveries.

I would expect a responsible firework distributor to fully vet their transport suppliers to ensure that they fully understand their responsibilities under ADR and have access to a competent Dangerous Goods Safety Advisor, to offer their own advice to the transport company on the safe transport of their goods if necessary, and above all to ensure that the transport company is fully aware of the training that their staff and subcontractors are required to undertake before transporting fireworks.

I was surprised then to read a message posted on one of the leading courier industry websites looking for 70 vans to do 172 journeys over a 3 day period delivering fireworks. There’s nothing particularly wrong with that, although I didn’t think that the company were likely to find 70 suitably qualified drivers on the website in question. I was slightly concerned at this stage that although the company had mentioned the need for various items of safety equipment, they hadn’t mentioned any need for training.

The next day the company followed up their posting with the information “You do not need ADR because the NEC (explosive content) doesn’t exceed Read More…

Posted under Hazardous Goods - ADR

Robert Wilcox, the managing director of Massey Wilcox Transport, has just earned himself a place high up on the list of people I wouldn’t want to work for.

According to this report Mr Wilcox thinks so little of his drivers’ capacity for learning that he believes that ADR training is wasted on them and they should only be trained ‘what to do in the case of an emergency’.

He goes on to say “Drivers are not the best classroom attendees, and whatever is crammed into their heads to get them through the exam is promptly forgotten a week later”. I wonder how Mr Wilcox thinks that his drivers managed to gain their existing professional qualifications, not to mention how he thinks they’ll cope with the new driver CPC qualification. However does he think they manage to drive his company’s vehicles competently and safely if they’re not capable of retaining knowledge for more than a week?

Mr Wilcox makes the case that the traffic staff should have the training because “after all, it’s their decision what is carried and when”.

That might be how Mr Wilcox operates his company, but its certainly not best practice and it’s a possible sign of a company operating on the fringes of legality. It’s for the driver, and no-one else, to decide whether it’s safe for him to take a load out. The driver bears the ultimate responsibility for the safety of his load, his vehicle and himself and no under-trained cretin in a traffic office 200 miles away is entitled to take decisions on his behalf.

It’s this type of attitude – ‘the traffic office knows best’ – which is behind some of the sloppiest and most unsafe practices in the transport industry: drivers’ hours infringements, speeding, overloading, health and safety breaches – all because of the ‘just get it done’ attitude in the traffic office and the pressure put on drivers to do what the traffic staff tells them to do.

Only yesterday I had a call from a same day courier who’d been sent in to an end user to collect a load on behalf of another transport company. The carriage of the load clearly required an ADR trained driver and both the consignor and the transport company were aware of that fact. The owner-driver, Read More…

Posted under Hazardous Goods - ADR

It is indeed Class 9, but if you can be bothered to go and look at the Dangerous Goods List you’ll discover that it’s outside the scope of ADR, whatever the quantity.
 

Posted under Hazardous Goods - ADR

It always needs awareness training or full ADR unless it’s in LQ packages.

In the case of UN1292 it’s maximum 5 litre containers packed in boxes of maximum 30 kg. You can’t classify them as LQ yourself and just carry them though – they have to be classified as LQ by the shipper and marked with LQ diamonds

Posted under Hazardous Goods - ADR

What makes you say that Jason? I’m not aware of any exemption for containers less than 25 litres.

I’d have said it needed a minimum of ‘awareness’ training to carry it.
 

Posted under Hazardous Goods - ADR

If there was a white ‘LQ’ diamond on the box (and there probably was one because things like that are usually packed so that they can be shipped without ADR) it’s exempt from ADR. You could carry a whole truckload with no training.

Posted under Hazardous Goods - ADR

The basic rule is: if you don’t know whether you can carry it then you’re not qualified to carry it.

I think that most inert , non-toxic compressed gases are LQ1, so for you to be able to carry them under the Limited Quantity exemption they’d need to be under 120ml, packaged as multiple units and marked up as ‘LQ’. So basically you can’t carry anything bigger than a box of sodastream cartridges without training.

Your customer’s confusing the Limited Quantities exemption with the Small Loads exemption, which allows you to carry them with just ‘Awareness’ training if they’re below the thresholds laid out in ADR.
 

Posted under Hazardous Goods - ADR

James, it has no particular relevance to this thread but for future information:

There are two types of partial exemption from ADR for carrying small quantities of ADR goods; Limited Quantities (or ‘LQ’) allows you to carry genuine LQ goods, marked with a white ‘LQ’ diamond, outside the scope of ADR with no formal training other than training in (or understanding of) normal Health & Safety procedures. It’s up to the shipper to decide whether it’s LQ or not and to mark the packages appropriately. If there’s no LQ diamonds on the packages then it’s not LQ.

The other partial exemption from the full scope of ADR is goods carried under the thresholds laid down in 1.1.3.6.3 of ADR and amended by the Carriage Regulations. To carry goods under this ‘small loads’ exemption you still need ‘Awareness’ training (which you’ve suggested that you’ve got) and access to a DGSA. If you’re not sure whether you can carry the goods with just ‘Awareness’ training then you’re meant to consult your DGSA to find out.

If the goods weren’t marked as ‘LQ’ and you’ve not got access to a DGSA then you shouldn’t have been carrying the goods anyway, no matter how small the quantity.
 

Posted under Hazardous Goods - ADR