When a dangerous goods load goes wrong - a leaking drum, a vehicle fire, a collision on a smart motorway - the driver’s first minutes determine whether it stays an incident or becomes a catastrophe. ADR anticipates this with a requirement that is simple to state and demanding in practice: the driver must carry emergency information they can actually use. The HSE’s carriage of dangerous goods manual sets out the framework, and it deserves more attention than the laminated sheet in the door pocket usually gets.
The documentation a dangerous goods crew carries splits into two distinct things: the transport document, covered by the consignment procedures, and the Instructions in Writing - IiW - which contain basic information for use in an emergency. Two features of the current regime matter most. First, there is now a standard format for the Instructions in Writing which is not affected by the goods carried - one document, applicable whatever the load. Second, the duty lands on the carrier: it is the carrier’s responsibility to ensure the driver has the IiW in a language he or she understands. For international work the language question is real - the consignment documentation itself may lawfully be in the language of the forwarding country plus English, French or German, which is one reason the standardised layout of the emergency information matters so much.
The IiW also drive the vehicle’s equipment list: they specify equipment to be carried, and some of it is determined by the nature of the goods carried. The equipment is not generic kit but load-specific protection - the difference between a driver equipped for a corrosive spill and one carrying the right gear for flammable liquids.
ADR’s fire extinguisher requirements are specific enough to audit. The HSE manual summarises the minimum provision by vehicle weight, and the specification is dry powder - chosen because it is known to be suitable for tackling class A fires involving solids such as wood and paper, class B fires involving liquids, and class C fires involving gases. The manual sets the requirements out by the vehicle’s maximum permissible mass, so the cab of a small dangerous goods van and a 44-tonne tanker do not carry the same provision - and an extinguisher of the wrong type or an expired service date is a compliance failure an examiner can spot in seconds.
The IiW equip the driver; the placards equip everyone else. ADR’s placarding and marking requirements, cross-referenced through the manual, ensure that the vehicle announces its hazards to the emergency services before anyone opens a door. In an incident, the orange plates and hazard diamonds are the difference between firefighters approaching with the right media and approaching blind - which is why placarding accuracy is an emergency procedure issue, not just a loading-bay formality.
The compliance layer is the easy part: the right IiW in the cab, in a language the driver understands; the equipment the IiW specifies for the goods carried; extinguishers of the right type, size and service date; placards matching the load. The harder part is making it functional. Drivers should know where the IiW lives and what its layout tells them before the day they need it; the equipment should be checked at the same rhythm as the vehicle, not assumed; and the incident routine - protect the scene, call it in, use the IiW, no heroics beyond training - should be briefed like any other safety procedure. ADR wrote the emergency chapter so that a frightened driver at 3am has a script. The fleet’s job is to make sure the script is in the cab, in their language, with the kit to back it up.
The final layer is rehearsal. Emergency procedures that live only in a laminated card tend to fail at the moment of stress, which is why the fleets with strong dangerous goods records build the incident routine into training: where the IiW is kept, what its standard layout tells you, what the equipment is for, and the discipline of the first call - give the emergency services the UN number and the placard information, because that is what determines their response. The carrier’s duties make this a management responsibility, not a personal one: the IiW in the right language, the equipment matched to the goods, the extinguishers in date. An incident is the wrong place to discover any of those was missing. ADR wrote the script; the fleet’s job is to make sure the driver has read it before the night it is needed.