Praxair aggressively pursued rollover and capacity solutions by redesigning its tanker subframes and creating a portable storage tank that can be hauled to a customer’s jobsite and filled on location.
It’s not like Praxair has a major problem with rollovers. In fact, the company, which operates more than 600 Class 8 tractors and 750 trailers in its North American private fleet, averages only a couple of such incidents every year. In all, it’s a solid record for any large carrier.
“We’ve had years where we’ve had zero rollovers and years where we’ve had four or five,” says John Mitchell, national manager of distribution for the Fortune 300 company that supplies atmospheric and specialty gases to industries around the world.
But when you’re handling potentially dangerous cargo like oxygen, nitrogen, argon, helium, acetylene and hydrogen, one rollover is one too many.
“We typically have one of the better statistics in trucking,” Mitchell says. “But safety has to be our first priority.”
That’s why the Danbury, Conn.-based company is aggressively pursuing both high- and low-tech approaches for reducing the number of its rollovers to zero – every year.
In addition to adopting a high-tech electronic rollover warning system that interacts with drivers, the company also took a hard look at its equipment – standard atmospheric and specialty gas tanker trailers – and asked if it could make them less prone to rollovers. What it found was a low-tech solution to an inherent problem with tankers: Lower the center of gravity and make them less likely to tip.
