Fuel tankers should be restricted from major/minor roads

[Bayo3]

About some days ago, there was an  accident in the city of Lagos Nigeria, on popular Otedola bridge in Ikeja, a fuel tanker loaded with highly flammable product (petrol to be precised), plying the highway suddenly lost its grip on the busy road, to cut the long story short, the aftermath of the accident razed at least 54 vehicles, with 9 deaths including children and left many injured. Before the occurrence of this incident, it has been a topic and debate on social media, suggesting the restriction of these dangerous vehicles on the major roads. Do you concur to this suggestion? As this could reduce the rate of sudden deaths and dangers on roads.

 

The gory photos of the scene can be seen below;
https://www.eaglesnewsmedia.com/2018/06/petrol-tanker-caught-fire-on-otedola.html

[rmac52]

I think that as long as the drivers are trained well and the trucks are well maintained, the risk of this happening is very small.

The financial burden this would create would be huge.  Delivery costs for flammable goods would skyrocket.  This would result is a significantly higher price for the consumer.

Would you be willing to pay twice what you currently do for gas?

[Guest]

41 minutes ago, Bayo3 said:

As this could reduce the rate of sudden deaths and dangers on roads

No. Removing people who are on their phone while driving would have a much bigger impact. What aboud DUI?

 

Here you see one accident and based on that you think: "wow this is so dangerous, how can we let this happen"

Meanwhile over twice the amount of people die because they check their instagram while driving, but as that doesnt make it to the news you dont care about that at all. 

[PlayStation 2]

Transport trucks causing accidents in general isn't a common occurrence. You want to talk about an accident-causer, look at people on their phones, or people drunk driving.

[Lurick]

Well let's look at the alternative, they take small rural roads and destroy houses when there is an accident instead and it's much harder for emergency vehicles to get to them.

[GDRRiley]

in some parts of the US most flammable and hazmat trucks are restricted from being on roads and major bridges except during early moring, 2-4am.

This is due to some crazy accidents with fuel tankers blowing up in tunnels.

I'm going to say that I don't think there needs to be any more restrictions.

8 minutes ago, Lurick said:

Well let's look at the alternative, they take small rural roads and destroy houses when there is an accident instead and it's much harder for emergency vehicles to get to them.

true but this can be solved with more costly but much faster helicopters for at least the EMTs, fire will still have to come via ground

[handymanshandle]

4 hours ago, Bayo3 said:

About some days ago, there was an  accident in the city of Lagos Nigeria, on popular Otedola bridge in Ikeja, a fuel tanker loaded with highly flammable product (petrol to be precised), plying the highway suddenly lost its grip on the busy road, to cut the long story short, the aftermath of the accident razed at least 54 vehicles, with 9 deaths including children and left many injured. Before the occurrence of this incident, it has been a topic and debate on social media, suggesting the restriction of these dangerous vehicles on the major roads. Do you concur to this suggestion? As this could reduce the rate of sudden deaths and dangers on roads.

 

The gory photos of the scene can be seen below;
https://www.eaglesnewsmedia.com/2018/06/petrol-tanker-caught-fire-on-otedola.html

3 hours ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

Transport trucks causing accidents in general isn't a common occurrence. You want to talk about an accident-causer, look at people on their phones, or people drunk driving.

This is why pipelines are generally better.

As long as they're well maintained you reduce the amount of fuel tankers needed

 

[KhandakeF]

12 minutes ago, pinksnowbirdie said:

This is why pipelines are generally better.

Do they have a negative effect on the environment? 

[handymanshandle]

1 minute ago, KhandakeF said:

Do they have a negative effect on the environment? 

As long as they're maintained properly, no.

 

[dalekphalm]

4 hours ago, KhandakeF said:

Do they have a negative effect on the environment? 

Some impact, yes. 

 

But do tanker trucks? Yes. And a tanker truck accident is a lot more common than a pipeline leak. 

 

Pipelines get a lot of negative press - some of it justified. But when the government takes the time to do a proper assessment, and ensures the route goes around water tables, etc, it can end up being fairly safe. 

 

Until we can replace oil with alternatives, we will need ways to transport it. Let’s make sure we use the safest ways we can. 

[Guest]

Hazmat tanker drivers undergo an insane level of safety training in the United States, and accidents are extremely rare. And when they do happen they are almost never the fault of the driver.

 

From just statistics i know personally, every major truck stop chain runs a fuel tanker to every location they have sometime during the day. Meaning that Loves, TA/Petro, Marathon, Citgo, Valero, Shell, Speedway, Pilot, Flying J, etc with all their combined truck fleets are running about 4500-4800 diesel and gasoline tankers every 24 hours.

Thats not even including smaller companies and things like local refinery runs. Examples of those are the double tanker trailers you see in Los Angeles that supply fuel to the more dense parts of the city, or BP trucks around Whiting, Indiana who move fuel from the refinery to local distributors.

 

And how often do we see tanker accidents?

NCRs Sandia report on truck accidents over a 10 year period shows a total recorded number of 34 accidents, 12 of which resulted in fire, only 6 resulted in deaths.

 

Tanker accidents are rare, especially ones that do damage.

I think the key factor here is "Nigeria". One of those countries that doesn't really have OSHA or DOT regulation of any kind.

 

There is 0 reason to heavily inconvenience companies AND drivers elsewhere because of one really messed up accident.

 

You wanna be concerned about something safety wise with trucks? I usually haul drop and hook, pre sealed trailers. I never see the insides, even my bill of lading usually doesn't describe what's inside other than "non agricultural". The few times I have seen my load inside, it's been some janky bull crap. Including ripped open unlabeled bags of white powder, hazmat materials unlabeled such as aluminum powder and CAD welding kits (thermite and gunpowder), even a 7000 pound titanium plate that was stacked loosely on top of a few small pallets and unsecured. If I took a corner hard enough to dislodge it, it would've cut clear through the side of the trailer.

I have to now get either an inspection in when I pick up, or get signatures from the dockmaster and his boss that confirm the load is secure and safe.

You know what's in a fuel tanker and why it's dangerous. Boxes crash and burn all the time. I see at least one burnt out, rolled over or otherwise toasted truck every week somewhere on i40.

[ARikozuM]

9 hours ago, Lurick said:

Well let's look at the alternative, they take small rural roads

... with lots of farmland...

 

NEWS FLASH: Oil industry creates famine in midwest!

[dizmo]

Ok, so you restrict them from major roads. Where do you send them? Smaller roads, that are less likely to be well maintained (especially if this major road wasn't), and weren't designed to take large vehicles like that? That sounds like a wonderful idea...

 

It doesn't come down to restrictions, but regulation. You have to make sure the vehicles are in good shape, and the drivers are trained.

 

On 7/8/2018 at 9:13 AM, Some Random Member said:

No. Removing people who are on their phone while driving would have a much bigger impact. What aboud DUI?

Totally agree. I think they should find a way that if you get into an accident, they can tell if you've been on your phone, without question. If you were, you should lose any rights to coverage and lawsuit. It's pathetic how many drivers spend time glued to their phones. It's surpassed DUI in many areas in terms of damage.

22 hours ago, pinksnowbirdie said:

This is why pipelines are generally better.

As long as they're well maintained you reduce the amount of fuel tankers needed

Kind of...this was likely a truck delivering fuel to a gas station. So. That's not really fixed with pipelines. It wasn't crude.

[dalekphalm]

2 hours ago, dizmo said:

Ok, so you restrict them from major roads. Where do you send them? Smaller roads, that are less likely to be well maintained (especially if this major road wasn't), and weren't designed to take large vehicles like that? That sounds like a wonderful idea...

 

It doesn't come down to restrictions, but regulation. You have to make sure the vehicles are in good shape, and the drivers are trained.

 

Totally agree. I think they should find a way that if you get into an accident, they can tell if you've been on your phone, without question. If you were, you should lose any rights to coverage and lawsuit. It's pathetic how many drivers spend time glued to their phones. It's surpassed DUI in many areas in terms of damage.

Kind of...this was likely a truck delivering fuel to a gas station. So. That's not really fixed with pipelines. It wasn't crude.

I mean, in theory, you could create a gasoline pipeline delivery system that pumps gasoline directly to gas pump stations.

 

Would that be worth all the infrastructure costs? No idea. Someone would have to do the math of cost vs savings.

[dizmo]

4 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

I mean, in theory, you could create a gasoline pipeline delivery system that pumps gasoline directly to gas pump stations.

 

Would that be worth all the infrastructure costs? No idea. Someone would have to do the math of cost vs savings.

Definitely wouldn't be worth the cost. Not to mention the challenges to route the pipes is immense. 

[plsno]

No. The United States isn't Nigeria. We don't have an epidemic of tanker trucks killing people. maybe when it becomes a legitimate problem something like this would be reasonable. 

[GDRRiley]

we have likely in the US+CAN had more deaths from rail cars caring crude than other tanker types.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

On ‎2018‎-‎07‎-‎08 at 7:29 AM, Bayo3 said:

 As this could reduce the rate of sudden deaths

Might as well ban air travel then.

[Bayo3]

8 hours ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Might as well ban air travel then.

Air travel does not endanger as much as carelessness and negligence of fuel tanker drivers...

[Arika]

12 minutes ago, Bayo3 said:

Air travel does not endanger as much as carelessness and negligence of fuel tanker drivers...

and careless people in cars endanger more people and cause more deaths than trucks...

[Bayo3]

9 hours ago, noobadin said:

maybe when it becomes a legitimate problem

Prevention is rather better than cure, it could turn to a devastating problem anywhere in the world, not limited to Nigeria, great United States inclusive...

[Bayo3]

2 minutes ago, Arika S said:

and careless people in cars endanger more people and cause more deaths than trucks...

May be I should judge by environment...my judgment is directly proportional to my jurisdiction!

[Guest]

I can see this becoming a law in the EU within 1-3 years. As for the US, not a chance. 

Most US truckers end up driving at night since there are less cars, but as the oil industry runs things (source; the LEGO movie) nothing will get in the way of people using as much gas as possible & delivering as much gas as possible. 

[plsno]

3 hours ago, Bayo3 said:

Prevention is rather better than cure, it could turn to a devastating problem anywhere in the world, not limited to Nigeria, great United States inclusive...

I don't see the point in spending vast sums of money and legislator time to possibly save a few lives. Again, maybe this is a problem in Nigeria, however, it doesn't seem to be so in the US. Using trucks to transport gasoline and other dangerous chemicals seems to work fairly where i live.  

[DimasRMDO]

Here most fuel tankers are sent at night above 9PM when most roads aren't crowded anymore.

I think it's better to reduce them (fuel tankers) than directly banning them on the road, building pipeline as said by everyone makes sense. But it takes a lot of time to build and may cost a lot of money, not including maintenance (which if forgotten can also bring accidents like this but different way).

What I like about pipeline though is that once finished delivery cost may be cut significantly and theoretically be more efficient than fuel tankers.

 

Reduce fuel tankers, then eliminate them sounds 'better'. But I think we might bring another problems like jobs, some people are trained to drive trucks and not really flexible to work with something else. Sometimes it's not easy to retrain workers, but that's another story and might not be the main point of this discussion.