This is those good-to-know pieces of information that may not be useful to the average driver/road user.
If you use highways a lot and are observant, you may have noticed lots of features and information on cargo trucks; especially tankers and containers transporting dangerous goods.
Most of this info is coded. Truckers and emergency response crew usually understand the language but many of the rest of us don’t.
After this post, you’ll also learn that a lot of the trucks on our roads do not conform to some of these best-practise global safety standards.Â
On the image above, 8 of these features are explained:
1. Clean working tail lights
2. Fire safety placard indicating the type of suppressant to be used in the event of a fire by a small No ranging 1 – 4 – fuel trucks will have No 3
3. Border engineering-grade reflective tape – Red or yellow at the back, white at the front
4. Emergency Action Placard – e.g. 3YE where 3 – Class of fire risk, Y – Yes for a gas mask to be worn by emergency crew, E – Evacuation of public from area of incident
5. Toxicity Placard – can be ‘Harmful to plants and aquatic life’ like on this truck, or ‘corrosive’, ‘radioactive
‘, ‘infectious
‘, etc
6. UN Number Placard identifying product – eg 33 1203 identifies petrol by code 1203 and 33 means the product self ignites below 60°C. Diesel would be 30 1202. All hazardous products have a UN code.
This placard should also contain an emergency contact number for the truck company. The placard should be posted on all sides of the truck.
7. Clean Chevrons with reflectors – as a backup in case tail lights fail or when vehicle parked at night.
8. Under ride safety bar – to prevent cars and smaller vehicles going under the truck in rear collisions (Not sure if this one qualifies. It should be about 2ft ground clearance and fixed to the chassis.)
9. This truck lacks mudguards but they should be there complete with an anti-spray flap. – They help keep the chevrons and tail lights clean and prevent road spray and launching of debris to trailing vehicles.
10. Other features are not on this photo; like an appropriate fire extinguisher and others you may add below.
Source; Rapenda Kgo FacebookÂ
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