Thank you for your support, and thanks for the feedback. We’ve actually been talking to another truck driver with similar concerns about shippers incorrectly coding a hazmat load. He would like to see a product that allows the driver to verify that the load is correctly classified, labeled, & placarded with his company’s safety department before leaving the loading site, and then if it is not correct, to be able to receive a rule change letter on his mobile device. Finally, the product would then help make changes to the labeling (if the safety department requires them) by allowing the printing of new labels on an in-cab printer (or any printer the driver has access to).

The thread where he describes the kind of product he needs is on one of our posts, here.

What do you think? We prefer this to simply having an app where you enter substance data to be told what placards to use, because this app would allow a trained safety department to decide what the right classification is, and it would also allow the driver to make a change on the spot. Rather than just telling you “it’s wrong,” you might be able to fix it right then and there.

We aren’t actively developing this product yet, we are just researching it, so if you think it would be helpful, please tell us so.

Thanks again–it’s always good to get feedback from our users!

–Bret

But I would like to See if We Can Get Another APP..
One were we can Put in the CLASS or UN\NA Code and Weight for All Items Carried and It Shows What Placards Are Required… Some of the Shippers out there are not Codeing Stuff Right and its the DRIVERS that have to Pay if there Wrong. Please Help… I promise to BUY that one To…

Thanks for the Great Programs \ Apps
OTR Driver (Trainer)

But I would like to See if We Can Get Another APP..
One were we can Put in the CLASS or UN\NA Code and Weight for All Items Carried and It Shows What Placards Are Required… So of the Shippers out there are not Codeing Stuff Right and its the DRIVERS that have to Pay if there Wrong. Please Help… I promise to BUY that one To…

Thanks for the Great Programs \ Apps
OTR Driver (Trainer)

Fortunately, I don’t think that is much of a risk here. Truckers are usually in a hurry to leave a shipper and get on the road.

They are, also, reticent to change anything and be responsible for it. Then there is the sheer tedium of the work involved..inside a dark trailer, besides.

The only way I could imagine doing that is if the Hazmat Department insisted on it. Even with this technology, it would be a boring tedious hassle, at best. But, if necessary, to avoid CSA points, then totally necessary.

I personally would also ask the shipper their take on it. Firstly, because, as in the 1st example above, they may know of some obscure rule change for this particular substance, which the Hazmat Dept might not know of.

If the whole thing can be headed off with a camscanned “official rule change letter”, excusing the situation, then “problem avoided”.

Secondly, if the shipper does have it wrong, then they may have the correct label or placard needed, and may just yank off the freight and apply it themselves. Which means the work is avoided.

I don’t think many truckers are going to do anything on their own this way, due to the above reasons. However, if this product comes out, then it would be a good idea to lay all this out in the instructions, so possible unneeded use of the app and materials could be avoided.

Yes, of course you can quote me. Thanks for asking though.

I will check out SnapToMe and let you know what I think.

Greg

Well, you’re right: since we haven’t been in the habit of posting much content here–this is mostly a product page–this site isn’t exactly a bustling hub of discussion. So we will have reach out a bit if we want to sound out this idea.

When you initially described what you were looking for in an email, I think we misunderstood it slightly. We are not truck drivers here, so that probably had a lot to do with it. I wasn’t thinking about your ability to be in touch with your hazmat dept. and to get instant feedback. It seems obvious now, but I had been concerned about the trucker taking on more of the liability for the hazmat load’s possible errors if he or she changes the labeling after the shipper signs and hands over the hazmat papers, that is, after they have vouched that to the best of their knowledge the materials are classified, labeled, and packaged properly.

However, if the assessment and correction are coming from your company hazmat dept in real time, it’s a different thing, and it makes a lot of sense to be able to implement those corrections easily on the spot. The technology is in place so that it should make this an easy deal in this day and age.

You have a lot of great points here and I’m glad you spelled out what you are looking for in a product more fully. Do you mind if I quote your comments above when I am attempting to describe the idea to other truckers? (Since you posted it publicly I’m guessing you don’t mind, but it’s best to ask, right?)

It has occurred to me that we have another app (that we have previously considered unrelated to our Placards line) that could be potentially useful for an HM driver. SnapToMe sends a photo taken with a phone automatically to a preset email address of your choosing. Maybe this could be integrated into an app specifically for truckers or used on its own to send images of your load to your HM dept. with embedded data such as a job/order number and date/time. While not expressly designed for this, I don’t think there’s any reason the app can’t be set up to serve this purpose as it is. There’s a free version if you want to try it out and let us know if it could be useful as part of a package for hazmat drivers. We would appreciate your take on it. Perhaps you prefer to do this with video though. What are your thoughts? Does that sound useful at all?

Another factor, is I’m not sure how many people will see it here, since I’m not sure how much traffic there is. But if it and the link were posted in trucking forums, perhaps you all will get faster feedback. Problem is I am not in any of the forums myself, I have read a few, but am not active in that type of thing.

Another idea that just occured to me now is this. Pay as you go versus a paid model. It is one thing to vaguely know something is available, and quite another to buy in advance, a service, let alone possible special “plastic paper” (if such exists and can work in a printer), and not even know whether it will be needed. But, if a “pay as needed” option existed, that might get people over the hump?

Something down and dirty that could just use standard printer paper and make “good enough” labels on the spot. A person could cobble something together quickly that way, and then having learned the usefullness, get all set up with possible “better material” to print on for this use later.

Of course, printer paper, is not waterproof, and so it would not work for placards. But, IMO, labels are the bigger hidden issue. Drivers trust the shippers to get that part right, and I think theres a high percentage that are not getting it right.

If a driver wants to avoid almost all possibility of CSA violations over label issues, but doesn’t want to risk losing the load. If they know they can print up labels on the spot, they are far more likely to call the hazmat department and take a smartphone, as I did, and start videoing the hazmat load and email it to the hazmat Dept.

Trust me, the Hazmat Dept loves this and they go over it with a fine tooth comb. And this combs the last CSA nits (in theory at least) out of any Hazmat load.

This, IMO, is what it is going to get down to in this industry. Smartphone video verification, rather than traditional “driver guessing and hoping”.

Shippers and receivers very often use a smartphone camera to snap a pic or take a video of our freight before we leave, and the seal also…and after we arrive. This is over potential in-transit damage.

There is NO reason we should not return the favor on their loading, placarding and labeling practices. And also, as I did, use a camscanner app to email off a quick image of the bills so they can have a look at that as well.

With an app to then fix all possible label or placard issues, we will be FAR more likely to call the Hazmat Dept and email them all the pics and videos and camscanned bills they need. And be able to save the load by fixing things on the spot.

Greg

If you ever want such a product to materialize, please copy and paste this link into any trucker forums or other industry sites you visit, and try to bring up the question for discussion.

Thanks, Greg

I have hauled hazmat as needed throughout my career. I am now an owner operator with a large company, Landstar, in which the O/O’s exclusively choose their own freight from the company loadboard. As such, I can choose to haul hazmat or not.

Since hazmat, on average, pays more, I had previously chosen it disproportionately.

Due to CSA 2010, I have gradually begun to question shipper practices on hazmat loads more than I would’ve earlier. Previously, I “took care of my part”, and unless something jumped out at me as a hazard, I did not sweat the non-safety related stuff. I trusted them to know their part as to labels and such.

A few months ago, I took a load that seemed “a little off” in the placard department. I called the hazmat department, and they confirmed my suspicions. But at that point they wanted to check out everything. Due to CSA2010, I had no objection to that, so we proceeded. It turned out they found (or believed at the time they found) a problem with the labels as well.

Long story short, the shipper tried their best to comply with the hazmat departments interpretation of the rules. And I offered to make manual labels and such. But in the end, we still came up short. And the shipper reluctantly, after hours of wasted effort, unloaded the load, and I lost it, and the weekend, since this was a Friday evening.

It turned out later, as I surmised from something I heard from the hazmat dept later, that the shipper had been right all along. There had been a recent, little known rule change, just for this commodity, and the shipper had (I believe) gotten it right. I didn’t pursue this, so I can’t nail it down for sure, but I’m pretty sure my load was the one they meant when we were talking later on about something else.

A few weeks later, I took another hazmat load. This shipper, while initially nice and polite, had numerous things out of technical compliance. Most were inconsequential, but as each correction dragged on, they piled up, and the shipper began to lose patience. They blamed ME, and began to think I did not want the load, which was not even remotely the truth, as I had chosen it myself.

Finally, they indicated that if there were any more problems, the load would come off the trailer, which was what I had been warning the hazmat department was about to happen if we didn’t wrap this up. BTW, the initial problem, was a placard issue I believe, or an obvious label issue, which then led to more out of compliance discoveries. Unlike the previous shipper, these were all real, though most were breathtakingly inconsequential, and had little to no safety implications. But, due to CSA 2010, I did not want ANY possibilities of points at all. I do not want that to even start, since it can “flag you” for closer scrutiny, as I understand it, and then snowball from there.

Bottom line, there ended up being “one more thing” at the end of when we thought we had it all fixed. So the shipper completely lost patience, thinking it was me doing it, and unloaded it, and so I lost that one too!

At that point, I decided that due to CSA 2010 and apparent shipper non-compliance on the “picky details”, especially regarding arcane label requirements, I would not haul hazmat for a while, till CSA 2010 had been “force sunk” into the collective consciousness of hazmat shippers a bit more than it apparantly is now. I figure as more companies and drivers get fined and get points and get weeded out a bit, and hazmat shippers see more hardnosed drivers and hazmat departments riding herd on them, that it will straighten things up a bit over time. So, as of last fall, I do not haul hazmat anymore, and won’t for awhile, till I see some reason to believe there has been improvement. And yes, it is definitely impacting my income a bit. And I would like to have another kind of solution. Which is where my idea came from for driver customized labels and placards, with a smartphone app.

Thing is, I have no idea how long hazmat shipper improvement will take. And I feel there is another solution. Truck level customization and printing of adhesive labels or at least of non-adhesive labels that can be taped on, would have solved every problem we encountered.

The primary problem I encountered, was labels needing to be resized or shaped or re-worded or otherwise altered in some simple way. Same with placards, except for there being no need to re-shape or re-size the placards, of course.

Labels apparantly have a lot of variations and variables regarding shape and size. And shippers can get out of compliance and not know it. They can also run out of something.

While it is the shippers responsibility to keep on top of all this. The reality is, if they don’t, it is not THEM who gets the CSA points, it is US and our companies. And, if we call the hazmat department to try to straighten it out in order to keep from getting the points, nine times out of ten, they are going to “keep combing” and they will find a lot of little stuff. The shipper may not have the ability on the spot to comply, and it is US who will lose the load.

Therefore, if we don’t want the points or to lose the load, the ONLY solution is the one we carry around with us. Most of us either have printer/scanners or at least could if we wished. And if someone were to come up with a software way to copy/paste amd otherwise alter the printed/graphic/size/shape parameters of various types of labels and also to make custom placards…we would never have to worry about this.

If I had, had this capability, then NEITHER load would have been lost, and that is without question. In each case, shipper lack of the proper labels and/or placards, and their inability to make them on the spot, was the entire problem. If I could’ve did it, the issue would’ve been moot. It would’ve been done, and I would’ve been out of there legal, and with every nitpicky thing accounted for.

The printing stock, ideally, would be self-adhesive. And would be tested in a variety of common printers and therefore generally known to work. Absent that kind of solution, it should be a plastic letter sized sheet, so as to better conform to weird contoured surfaces than paper, and so it would be waterproof, and more durable than printer paper. Glossy printer paper would be my personal last choice, I’m thinking, but it should work. We could cut it out with scissors along a dotted line. Due to variable shape/size requirements, a pre-scored type of print stock would not be a good idea, except for placards, which can only be one shape/size. And even then pre-scoring would not be necessary, just convenient.

What do you think?

BTW, the best compact, full featured all-in-one printer/scanner/faxer/ etc, for a truck, that I know of, is the HP Envy 100. It was, at least at the time I got it about three or four years back, the only full featured, compact all-in-one in existence. The others were too bulky for a truck, or were not all-in-ones. But there may be other choices now, dunno.

Please take a moment and weigh in on this issue. Do you, or have you, tried to avoid getting any CSA points by becoming a stickler? Ever had a hazmat department be a stickler for you, and lose you a load? Do you prefer to take your chances with gettin CSA violations, to make more money “this week”, even at the possible cost of your present job and your subsequent re-employability?

Would you pay for a smartphone app that allowed you to customize a label or placard to your company Hazmat Departments requirements? And possibly some special printer paper or plastic sheets, to print them off on, so you could roll legal? Please give us some feedback here. If there is positive feedback, such a product could be developed.

If you are a company Hazmat Department official, or employee, would you find it beneficial to have a Windows or Linux (or smartphone app) of your own,or your companies own, with which you could quickly just design a placard or label that complies, and email it to either the driver or shipper, to be printed off and taped on the product, so you won’t get CSA points OR lose the load? Please tell us what you think of this?

Thanks, Greg

Also, if you are looking for large quantities and/or a customized version, we can make bespoke versions of the ebook (with private phone numbers, specialized procedures, etc).

But, if you want a version that is specifically and only for the iPhone, one of our competitors publishes an app called Cargo Decoder that is available in the iTunes store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cargo-decoder/id520387030. The name doesn’t say ERG but I believe it has the same basic information as our Android app.