Compliance

Requirements to be met when dangerous goods are transported are generated on a global, regional and country level.

The assumption is: If the requirements are appropriately established, compliance with these will result in an acceptable level of safety.

Not absolute safety all the time, but an acceptable level of safety.

But is it good enough to simply publish the requirements?

Obstacles to (road) compliance: - the driver does not know about the requirements - the driver misunderstands the requirements - the driver does not care about the requirements - the driver understands, but knowingly acts contrary to the requirements

Since the requirements are structured such that compliance with the requirements will provide an acceptable level of safety, can we affect the level of compliance? For all forms of obstacles?

Only if compliance with the requirements is imposed by law, and means of detecting, correcting and penalizing non- compliance are also established by law.

Otherwise, as some have said, the set of requirements is really just a book of suggestions.

How things happen in Canada, for comparison purposes: Examined as concepts rather than details.

First, the requirements are established as legal requirements, with penalties available should there be non-compliance with the requirements.

Secondly, persons are appointed as inspectors to inspect (check) for compliance.

The authorities given to inspectors in Canada are very powerful, but at the same time are limited by reasonable expectations of privacy.

Thus an inspector can stop and inspect any means of transport, or enter and inspect any place …

…at a reasonable time and if the inspector believes on reasonable grounds that on it or in it there are dangerous goods …

The inspector can compel, under the law, the production of any relevant information, documents, etc…

However, should the inspector find non-compliance, and decide the matter should be brought before a court, the authority to compel the production of information immediately ceases.

Further information can only be obtained by conducting an investigation.

A big problem for our inspectors is knowing when they have crossed over the line from inspection to investigation as cases can be readily lost in court if information that was improperly acquired is used.

Another seemingly heavy legal imposition: A driver of a truck carrying dangerous goods commits an offence if the dangerous goods or means of containment fails any part of the requirements, including being incorrectly classified (by the consignor).

The reason for this is to have “an offence taking place” should a truck be transporting dangerous goods misclassified by the shipper. If there is non-compliance we can detain the goods until the non-compliance (error) is corrected.

However, although we could detain (put out of service until fixed) we would never be successful in punishing the driver through a fine or jail term for a consignor error, given the due diligence provision of our law.

It is because it is safety legislation that we can always act to remedy a safety problem, even if we cannot take disciplinary measures.

Back to inspections.

Who gets inspected? When do they get inspected? Where do they get inspected? What kind of results do we get?

We distinguish between non- compliance that could cause a release, such as the use of an inappropriate means of containment, and non-compliance which would only be a problem if there were an incident, such as a misspelling on the shipping document.

For the road mode we obtain about 90% compliance with the first grouping of requirements and about 60% compliance with the second grouping of requirements.

However, because we recognize that if the consignor makes an error the carrier will most likely not recognize this, and, if the consignor does everything correctly the carrier will most likely continue this, we place a strong priority on inspecting shipper facilities (on premises checks).

But because errors continue to show up on the highway, checks of certain items do occur regularly at highway weigh scale locations.

Recalling how non-compliance can arise:

Obstacles to (road) compliance: - the driver does not know about the requirements - the driver misunderstands the requirements - the driver does not care about the requirements - the driver understands, but disobeys the requirements

Actions taken as a result of an inspection (check) can vary.

- Provide verbal counseling - Detain until fixed (out of service) - Ticket - Summary conviction proceeding - Indictment - Agree to not prosecute if conditions met for the completion of the transport - Inspector direction

RoadCheck Statistics