Placarded Load Meets a Tunnel Sign

You do not enter the tunnel. The posted sign is the authority; the GPS is a suggestion from an algorithm that does not know what is on your deck. Both Baltimore harbor tunnels - the Fort McHenry on I-95 and the Harbor Tunnel on I-895 - prohibit hazardous materials, and placarded loads are routinely turned around or cited at the approach.

The reasoning, rather than the rule alone:

• A tunnel is a confined space with limited ventilation, no easy evacuation, and no way to get apparatus to the middle of it quickly. A flammable liquid release in a tunnel is a different event from the same release on an open interstate.
• A corrosive release adds a contamination and cleanup problem in a space where runoff cannot go anywhere good.
• A tunnel fire can trap people ahead of and behind you, and the smoke has nowhere to go.

What you actually do: pull off before the approach where it is safe, tell dispatch the routing app is directing you to a prohibited tunnel, and reroute around the harbor on the Beltway, allowing the extra time. Call the consignee, tell them 4:00 p.m. is not achievable, and give them a real time. Never let a delivery window talk you into a prohibited route; the penalty is not a late fee.

The shipping paper, kept within your reach while you are at the controls - in a holder on the driver's door or in clear view in the cab - not buried in a bag in the sleeper. It must show, for each hazardous material:

• The proper shipping name - Paint and Hydrochloric acid, not trade names or abbreviations.
• The hazard class - 3 and 8.
• The UN number - UN 1263 and UN 1789.
• The packing group - II for both.
• The total quantity and unit of measure, plus the total quantity of the entire shipment.
• The shipper's certification and an emergency response telephone number that is monitored at all times the shipment is in transit.

The placards must match the load: FLAMMABLE on both sides and both ends for the paint, CORROSIVE for the acid, displayed on the vehicle. Two different hazards means two different placards; you do not pick one and hope.

The ERG in the cab, and this is the part drivers skip: look up 1789 and 1263 before you need them. During a release, at night, in the rain, is not when you want to be learning how to use the index. Know which guide you will be reading and what the initial isolation distances say.

First: stop and protect people, not the schedule.

1. Stop the operation. Tell the receiver's dock supervisor immediately - they control the dock. Stop smoking, shut down anything that could spark, and keep everyone upwind and away from the drum.
2. Do not touch it, do not roll it, do not try to re-close it by hand. Hydrochloric acid fumes are corrosive to the lungs and the eyes, and a drum that is seeping at the chime is structurally compromised at the weakest point.
3. Get to the book. Look up UN 1789 in the ERG and follow the guide it sends you to - the isolation distances, protective clothing guidance, and first aid are printed there for a reason.
4. Notify. Call the shipper, call the consignee's safety contact, and call 911 if there is any fume release into an occupied area. CHEMTREC exists for exactly this; the number belongs to the shipper and should be on the shipping paper.
5. Contain, do not wash down. If the dock has a spill kit and trained staff, they deploy it; acid goes into a storm drain over someone's dead body. As the driver, your job is to report, isolate, and cooperate - you are not trained or equipped to clean up a corrosive release, and the shipper/consignee bears that responsibility.
6. Document. Note the drum, the time, the conditions, and who was notified, with photographs if it is safe. Then call dispatch. If the trailer has to be unloaded elsewhere or the load rejected, that is a decision made by people with the paperwork and the training - and it starts with you saying something at the moment you see it, not after the delivery is signed for.