Hauling hazardous materials is serious business, says Cecil Pickett, a driver with Usher Transport, Louisville, Ky.

"I've hauled some of the worst stuff people make, but that doesn't mean I'm afraid. When you're afraid, that's when you get hurt. Safety is about using common sense and knowing what you can and can't do," says Pickett, who has been driving professionally for 59 years. He made the move to hazmat in 1982.

Constant vigilance is key, he says. "Some guys, they don't look any farther than the end of the hood," says Pickett, 75. "Me, I look a half mile ahead. I want to know what's happening ahead and beside me. As for the guy who's tailgating me, well, I can't help him." He says drivers are attracted to the industry by its higher pay and the fact that many companies pay not by the mile, but on a percentage of the gross or by the hour.

"Being hazmat certified is just the start of hauling tankers," says Mike Baker, Usher's director of safety. He says Usher rejects 40-60 percent of applicants whose work record or background check doesn't reflect the company's standard or increased security requirements resulting from the World Trade Center disaster.

"Sometimes we get [applicants] in who say they've worked hazmat and we show them the emergency response guidebook. When you ask them what it is, they say it's a book you're supposed to carry in your truck, but they've never read it," says Baker. Usher uses a comprehensive training, follow-up and mentoring system to prepare drivers for hauling safely the wide range of chemicals, corrosives and fuels the company is known for. "We don't want to be the company whose tanker is sticking out of a burning building on the 6 o'clock news," says Baker pragmatically.

Moving ammunition from manufacturing plants to sales points across the country requires special handling, says Coy Getman, a technical services technician with CCI-Speer, a Lewiston, Idaho manufacturer of rimfire and centerfire handgun ammunition. Packaging has to be able to survive a four-foot drop and individual pieces of ammunition must be specially packaged to prevent accidental discharge, he says.

CCI, like most ammunition manufacturers, ships its products via common carriers such as Roadway and Yellow Freight. Getman says drivers must be hazmat certified and the exterior of the truck must carry a code that demonstrates to law enforcement and emergency personnel that it contains ammunition. Getman says security issues are addressed by not shipping guns with ammunition. "Also, if someone hijacked a truck with ammo, most people wouldn't have any idea what size gun it fit."

Getman says the public is uninformed about the minimal risk shipping ammunition represents. "If a truck containing ammunition catches fire [the result won't be] a smoking hole in the concrete. You'll generally get something that sounds like corn popping." He explains that when packaged, bullets are heavier than their cartridge cases. "Without confinement (in a gun), the cartridge case becomes the projectile."

No matter what's being hauled, Tanner Industries driver Ted Mrozek says safety begins and ends with the driver.

"You never cheat. You wear your PPE (personal protective equipment such as respirator, face shield, hard hat, rubber gloves and sometimes even a full chemical suit)," says Mrozek who has driven hazmat for 14 years. He says when injuries do occur, they typically involve experienced drivers, not rookies. "People get lax because they think they have enough experience to cut corners." As an additional measure of safety, drivers such as Mrozek and Pickett have the latitude to refuse a pick up or delivery if they believe the situation is unsafe.

Indeed the potential risk of hauling hazardous materials, Mrozek says, in some ways makes it safe.

"Safety is strict in hazmat," says Mrozek who hauls the ammonia based-products in which the Southampton, Penn.-based Tanner specializes. "Hazmat hauling is above board. I don't have to rush loads and because I get paid by the hour, delays from being stopped for safety checks aren't a problem."

At Zambelli Fireworks Internationale, Ron Wethli, safety manager, says having his drivers pulled over for U.S. Department of Transportation inspections is just fine with him and he pays drivers an extra $25 for them. "I want my drivers to be happy they've been pulled over. I want them to give [law enforcement] a full inspection because every time one of our trucks passes, it establishes in [law enforcement's] mind that they're not going to find anything wrong," says Wethli.

The cyclical nature of the fireworks business allows the New Castle, Penn. company to dip into an atypical driver pool. "School bus drivers are my favorites," says Wethli. "They already have their CDLs (commercial driver license). They're not driving buses when I need them and, if you can deal with a busload of rug rats, you can deal with my products."

For Zambelli driver Cindy Ambuster, the work suits her aptitude for driving and her avocation as a pyrotechnician or "shooter," those trained to put on the fireworks displays for which Zambelli has been known for more than 100 years. On one of her first trips, Ambuster looked in the side mirror of her truck and saw smoke. "I parked and ran about 200 yards and waited for the explosion," she recalls. She later found out it had been her brakes smoking.

"Once you've done this kind of work, you love it," says Ambuster. "People get excited when our trucks pull in because without us the show can't go on."