A common thing DG shippers (and everyone) often forgets. ALWAYS check special provisions for an item. I’ve gotten burned by this several times, as much as I always counsel the student to “check the special provisions before going too far…” some SP are super important and can save you a lot of work processing a shipment. So, I wanted to look in the often overlooked “how to use the regulations” section of IATA. I was reviewing some of our “student practice scenario” online training materials and didn’t completely agree with where my ID person had placed special provisions in the order of things.
That’s when I realized that the IATA instructions on how to use their DGR didn’t really say much about special provisions — it mentioned something about checking “other” requirements and variations. I was just surprised it wasn’t more prominent.
To me the process should go something like this:
(1) Look up the correct entry in the blue pages UN/PG
(2) Turn immediately to the special provisions before wasting too much time with packing instructions.
Do you agree? Take Paint, it’s listed in the DGR as UN1263 but if you turn to SP A3 you’ll see it says “just because it’s listed here, doesn’t automatically mean it’s hazardous…” (I’m paraphrasing.)
If anyone wants to see the exercise I’m working on feel free to click here: https://lnkd.in/eHvkhN5a. You don’t need to log in to view it.
