PHMSA Incident Statistics Portal

Some time ago, Barbara Foster wrote a blog about a new portal that was created by PHMSA for reporting incidents:

After reviewing the different functions of the portal, I found some interesting data in regards to reported incidents when shipping dangerous goods across the United States. As Barbara mentioned in the previous blog, a Reportable Incident is defined as one where a direct result of a hazardous material event takes place that meets a variety of criteria, including fatalities, injuries, contamination, and undeclared hazardous material, to name a few.

What is the purpose of the PHMSA Incidents Portal?

The portal is designed to provide various dangerous good incident statistics across The United States for the public to view. The incidents are broken up into four categories: air, highway, railway, and water, and examines statistics over the last ten years (2011-2020). In addition, there is also a drop-down menu that breaks down each category into subcategories, showing statistics of incidents, injuries, fatalities, and damages over the same time period involving dangerous goods transportation. The information is also broken down by specific incidents across each category including, accidents, derailments, radioactive, waste, undeclared, bulk, and non-bulk.

What are Some of the Findings from the Portal?

In reviewing the statistics, the overall incidents involving dangerous goods have slowly climbed year by year over the last decade from about 15,000 to just over 21,000 per year. Incidents on the highway seemed to dominate across all the modes of transport while the least amount would be by water. On the other hand, although year to year overall incidents have generally increased, fatalities have decreased over the 2nd half of the last decade. From 2011-2015 there were 60 fatalities, while between 2016 and 2020, 34 fatalities were recorded due to dangerous goods incidents. Almost all fatalities from dangerous goods incidents have taken place on a highway during the last decade. This is certainly a statistic we wish didn’t exist at all, and our goal should be to bring that number down to zero moving forward. In terms of non-bulk packaging (packaging 119 gallons or less for liquids, 882 lbs or less for solids) incidents vs. bulk (packaging capacity more than 119 gallons for liquids or 882 pounds or more for solids) incidents over the last decade, there were 164,789 incidents involving non-bulk packaging vs. 15,743 incidents in bulk packaging. To view the portal and review all of the available statistics, click here. If you don’t have a username and ID through PHMSA, you will have to create one to enter.

Don’t be another statistic; let ICC The Compliance Center provide you with adequate training, services, and products to ensure your dangerous goods get to their destination in compliance with the regulations. Feel free to call us at 1-888-442-9628 for more details.

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