The Department of Transportation (DOT) and National Tank Truck Carriers will co-sponsor three Tank Truck Rollover Prevention Summits this fall. The summits will focus on the need to reduce rollovers, presentations by leading tank truck carriers and equipment manufacturers on approaches to rollover reduction, and the development of training and management materials.
The Summits will be held November 14 in St Louis MO; November 28 in Baltimore MD; and December 4 in Oakland CA. There is no charge for attending the events. Attendees will be encouraged to contribute their own ideas on preventing rollovers and to help develop new training and management tools.
While the tank truck sector has one of the best safety records in the trucking industry, reducing rollovers and subsequent release of hazardous materials is considered one of the top safety issues by the DOT and the industry itself. DOT recently released the Cargo Tank Roll Stability Study, which found that: “Rollovers occur in more than two-thirds of the serious single-vehicle crashes of cargo tank motor vehicles.”
More than 78 percent of tank truck rollovers are the result of truck or automobile driver error. (The study can be found at www.tanktruck.org by clicking on “news and events.”) Over 20 percent of the rollovers involve straight trucks used to transport such products as propane, home heating oil, and liquid wastes.
The study focused on four key areas: Driver training; Electronic stability aids; Cargo tank design, and Highway design. Each of these topics will be covered in detail at the Summits. Executive Summaries of the report will be among materials provided all attendees.
For more information on attending the Cargo Tank Rollover Prevention Summits, call NTTC at 703/838-1960 or request registration materials by email to: [email protected]. Again, there is no charge to attend the Summits, but space is limited and registration is required.