Gasoline Heads the List for Causing Most HazMat Fatalities

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has released online its report ranking both the top hazardous materials and transportation processes that were related to serious incidents and fatalities from 2005 to 2009. The Top Consequence Hazardous Materials Commodities Report is part of a series of steps that will allow PHMSA to identify areas of concern, target risks for particular types of hazmat, and plan for future incidents. The report’s data also will help educate enforcement authorities, inspectors and first responders on trends in the transport of hazmat, which will help them set priorities to better deal with the materials and modes of transportation that could have the most damaging effects. The report yielded findings which included: that some hazardous materials have high consequences due to the large number of transports while others are just volatile; that most deaths and injuries can be linked to a small sub-section of hazardous materials; that nearly all hazmat fatalities between 2005 – 2009 occurred during either rail or highway transport; and that rollover and derailment in transit are the principal causes followed by human error. The full report can be found on the PHMSA web site or here.