Knowledge base · Hazardous goods safety
हिन्दी में पढ़ेंEverything on a placarded vehicle is regulated: the classification, the markings, the papers that travel with it and the person driving. This is the part a driver and a depot officer both need straight before the vehicle moves.
Taught on: 3 Days Training Program for Drivers Carrying Hazardous Goods and SubstancesA driver identifies a load by the diamond on the vehicle. The names, the numbers and the background colours below are the Table's own; the symbol is drawn so the shape is familiar when it appears on a tank.
Note: Table I numbers Class 2 the other way round — 2.1 is the non-flammable gas and 2.2 the inflammable one, the reverse of the UN order. The Table ends at Class 8; it has no Class 9. The diamond on the vehicle is the one that applies — when in doubt, read the written information required by Rule 132(3), the Transport Emergency Card.
Goods that can harm people, property or the environment while being carried — flammable liquids and gases, toxic and corrosive substances, oxidisers, explosives and radioactive material. Table I to Rule 137 sorts them into eight classes, several of them sub-divided.
Class 3 — flammable liquids. What burns is the vapour, not the liquid, which is why a nearly empty tank is more dangerous than a full one, not less.
Both are Class 2 gases. LPG is carried liquefied under moderate pressure; CNG is carried compressed at very high pressure. In LPG the hazard is the liquid flashing to gas, in CNG it is the stored pressure itself.
The Transport Emergency Card: the written information about the load that Rule 132(3) requires the owner to hand the driver, in the form of Annexure V. Rule 133(1) then puts the duty on the driver — it is to be kept in the cab and available at all times while the goods are being carried.
The class label for the goods carried and an emergency information panel giving the substance, its UN number and an emergency contact — visible on the sides and the rear.
The driving licence with the hazardous goods endorsement, the registration certificate, the fitness certificate, insurance, the PUC, the consignment note and the TREM card.
The consignor must declare the goods correctly and give the driver the TREM card; the owner must ensure the vehicle and driver are fit to carry them. The driver is responsible for what he can see — the placards, the papers and the condition of the vehicle.
Only where the two are compatible. Some combinations react with each other and are not allowed together in one load. If you are unsure, the consignor must confirm it in writing before loading.
What the TREM card for that substance specifies — typically gloves, eye protection, a face shield or respirator where the product demands it, and a spill kit. It is checked at the terminal gate, not on the road.
That he holds a licence to drive a transport vehicle, and that he can read and write at least one of the languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, and English. The certificate alone is not enough.
Days one and two are defensive driving and advanced driving skills; day three is product safety — UN classification, the Hazchem code, TREM cards, explosive limits, and emergency procedure including spillage handling, PPE, fire fighting and first aid. The syllabus is the rule's own, not the institute's.
No. The licence lets you drive that class of vehicle. The endorsement, placed on the licence after certified training, lets you drive it carrying dangerous goods. You need both.
The driver applies in writing on plain paper to the licensing authority where he resides, with his licence and the training certificate, and the authority makes the endorsement. The rules prescribe the course but do not themselves fix a validity for the endorsement — renewal follows the licence it is placed on.
Rule 132(3) requires the owner to give the driver, in writing, the relevant information about the load in the form set out in Annexure V, and to satisfy himself that the driver understands it. Annexure V is headed Transport Emergency Card (Road) — TREM card is the industry's shortening of that title.
Six headings: the cargo, naming the chemical identity of the goods; the nature of the hazard; the protective devices; the emergency action, which opens with notifying the police and the fire brigade immediately; then spillage, fire and first-aid; and last, any additional information provided by the manufacturer or the sender.
Eight, sub-divided into fifteen entries. Table I to Rule 137 runs from Class 1 explosives to Class 8 corrosives. It has no Class 9 — the miscellaneous class familiar from UN and ADR charts is not in it.
In these rules, 2.1 is the NON-flammable gas, on a green ground; 2.2 is the inflammable gas, on red; 2.3 is poison gas, on white. That is the reverse of the UN order, where 2.1 is flammable. Read the words on the diamond, not the number you remember.
Orange for explosives; green for non-flammable gas; red for inflammable gas, inflammable liquids and inflammable solids; white for poison gas, poisonous, harmful and infectious substances; blue for substances that give off inflammable gas when wet; yellow for oxidizing substances and organic peroxides; white over black for corrosives. The symbol is black, or black or white where the Table allows either.
Class 6.2 carries a St Andrew's cross over an ear of wheat, and the bottom half of the label bears the words Harmful: Stow away from foodstuffs. Class 6.3, infectious substances, carries three crescents on a circle and may add a line telling anyone who finds damage or leakage to notify the Public Health Authority.
By flash point, in four bands. Extremely flammable is a flash point at or below 23°C with a boiling point below 35°C; very highly flammable is at or below 23°C with an initial boiling point above 35°C; highly flammable is above 23°C but at or below 60°C; flammable is above 60°C but below 90°C.
Yes. Table III to Rule 137 lists hazardous goods by name, each marked against the hazards it carries — E explosive, F flammable, O oxidising, R reactive, C corrosive, Ra radioactive, T toxic, G gas. A substance can be marked under more than one. Table II gives the criteria for deciding a substance the list does not name.
The owner of the goods carriage and the consignor lay down the route for each trip and fix a timetable for it. The driver is bound to take that route unless the police direct or permit otherwise.
In three places on the vehicle, facing each side and the rear: the correct technical name in letters at least 50 mm high, the UN class number at least 100 mm high, the class label at least 250 mm square, and the emergency telephone numbers at least 50 mm high. It must be kept clean and unobstructed.
Safety equipment to prevent fire, explosion or escape of the goods; a spark arrester; a tachograph conforming to Bureau of Indian Standards specifications; and first aid, safety equipment, a tool box and antidotes as the load needs.
Report it forthwith at the nearest police station, and also inform the owner of the goods carriage or the transporter. This is a separate duty under the rules, not a courtesy.
The first few minutes are the same whatever the load — stop clear of people and traffic, engine off, every ignition source away, stand upwind, read the card and call the numbers on the emergency panel. What changes with the class is what must not be done, and that is where drivers get hurt. The card for the actual substance overrides anything general, including everything below.
LPG vapour is heavier than air. It does not rise and blow away; it runs downhill and settles in drains, pits and cellars, where it can meet a flame a long way from the vehicle. So the ground to clear is the low ground downwind, not only the space around the tanker. Class 2.3 is a different problem again — there the danger is breathing it, and upwind distance is the only protection a driver has.
What catches fire is the vapour over the pool, so the danger grows with the pool and travels with the wind. Stop it spreading only if that can be done from a safe place — earth banked up, a drain covered. Keep every ignition source out of it, and that includes a mobile phone and the vehicle's own starter motor. Never wash it into a drain: it does not go away, it goes somewhere else and waits.
Because of what the class is. Table I defines 4.3 as substances which, on contact with water, emit inflammable gases — water on them makes the fire, it does not put it out. Division 4.2 is substances liable to spontaneous combustion, which can start without any flame at all. If the diamond shows a 4, the extinguisher is not the driver's choice to make; it is on the card.
An oxidising substance carries the oxygen the fire needs. Smothering it does not work the way it works on a fuel pool, and it will go on burning where an ordinary fire would have gone out. Cooling and distance are the answer, and the distance wants to be greater than instinct suggests.
You do not judge it, you keep away from it. The hazard travels on the air, and some toxic substances give no warning at all — a smell that fades often means the nose has stopped registering it, not that the air has cleared. Upwind and uphill, count the people, and nobody walks back for the papers.
Not at the roadside. The rule defines corrosives as substances that cause severe damage on contact with living tissue, and neutralising one generates its own heat and can throw the liquid further than it had reached. Flush skin with running water and keep flushing — longer than feels necessary. The vapour attacks the vehicle and whatever is downwind of it as well.
Keep everybody away and wait. Distance, time and shielding, in that order, and nothing else belongs to the driver — the response belongs to the people named on the emergency panel. What counts as radioactive is set against the levels the Atomic Energy Commission of India specifies, not by anything visible on the road.
Do not guess between them. Treat the load as the more dangerous of the two, keep everyone back, and call the consignor on the emergency panel. The written information under Rule 132(3) is what the consignor is answerable for, and Rule 131(3) puts the duty on him to make it accurate and sufficient.
It is driving without the licence required for that use. The penalty falls on the driver and the owner, and the terminal that loaded the vehicle is exposed as well.
This page is written for guidance. Where money, a licence or somebody's safety turns on it, read the rule itself — every answer says which one. Disclaimer and sources.
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