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Saturday, September 29, 2001
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
There are about 372,000 people with Pennsylvania commercial driver's licenses, and nearly a quarter of them -- 90,000 -- have permits to carry hazardous materials, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation says.
Those who want to get a commercial driver's license for large trucks, school buses and vehicles carrying 16 passengers or more are required to take a computerized knowledge exam and pass a road test that includes a vehicle inspection, off-road maneuvers and parking skills.
Drivers who want an "Endorsement H" hazardous materials certification must then take a separate hazmat test every four years.
The state administers nearly 10,000 hazmat driver's tests each month.
The test is a computerized exam of 30 questions that are randomly selected from 60 possible queries. The applicant has to correctly answer at least 24 of the questions on the computer exam but is not required to take an additional road test before hauling hazardous materials, regardless of whether the cargoes will be radioactive, poisonous, explosive, flammable or corrosive.
The information a driver needs to know to pass the hazmat test is contained in a 46-page booklet available at PennDOT testing sites.
The booklet covers everything from the placards that identify various hazardous materials and how to respond to spills, to such minor details as where to put nitric acid containers and how to read a shipping manifest.
The department isn't the only entity responsible for enforcing hazmat shipping regulations. Federal rules say a driver's employer must make sure the driver has had proper training and must keep copies of the driver's training records on file.
If a commercial driver is stopped and doesn't have a proper hazmat certification, he can be fined up to $5,000.