Hazmat · Driving and Parking Rules
Your placarded vehicle carries a hazardous material that is not Division 1.1, 1.2 or 1.3, and it is stopped on the shoulder of a public highway. Who has to attend it, and what counts as attending?
Explanation
A vehicle containing hazardous materials other than Division 1.1, 1.2 or 1.3 material that is located on a public street or highway, or the shoulder of one, must be attended by its driver, though it need not be attended while the driver is performing duties that are incident and necessary to the driver's duties as the operator of the vehicle. Attended has a defined meaning: the person in charge is on the vehicle, awake and not in a sleeper berth, or is within 100 feet of the vehicle and has it within an unobstructed field of view. The qualified-representative substitute that the same section allows belongs to the explosives rule, not to this one, so for a non-explosives load on the shoulder the driver is the named attendant. The wrong options each break one piece of that, handing the duty to any designated employee at triple the distance, reading the rule as explosives-only, or removing both the 100-foot allowance and the exception for the driver's own operating duties.
Source: 49 CFR 397.5(c) and (d)(1)
Related Driving and Parking Rules questions
- Federal parking limits for a hazardous materials vehicle split according to whether the load is Division 1.1, 1.2 or 1.3 explosive material. What does the regulation set for each case?
- Your load is placarded and no state or tribal routing designation applies to it. What does federal regulation say about the route, and what does the carrier owe you if the load is explosives?
- The federal smoking rule also reaches an empty tank motor vehicle that was required to be marked or placarded for the Class 3, flammable or Division 2.1 flammable gas material it last carried. For a loaded vehicle, what does the rule forbid, and which materials does it name?
- Federal regulation puts a tire duty on the driver of a hazardous materials vehicle. When do the tires get examined, and what follows from finding a bad one?