Less than two weeks after train cars filled with hazardous chemicals derailed in Ohio and caught fire, a truck carrying nitric acid crashed on a major highway outside Tucson, Arizona, killing the driver and releasing toxic chemicals into the air.
After the train derailment and fire in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 3, 2023, the U.S. EPA tested over 500 homes. It reported that none exceeded air quality standards for the chemicals tested. Credit: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency The Arizona hazmat disaster shut down Interstate 10, a major cross-country highway, and forced evacuations in surrounding neighborhoods. But the highway crash didn't draw national attention the way the train derailment did, or trigger a flood of calls for more trucking regulation like the U.S. is seeing for train regulation. Truck crashes tend to be local and less dramatic than a pile of derailed train cars on fire, even if they're deadlier. In fact, federal data shows that rail has had far fewer incidents, deaths and damage when moving hazardous materials in the U.S. than trucks. Trucks carry more hazmat and more risk At one time, rail and water were the only options for transporting chemicals and other potentially dangerous materials. The emergence of the automobile and subsequent construction of the interstate highway system changed that, and hazardous materials shipments by road steadily increased. Today, trucks carry the largest percentage of hazardous materials shipped in the U.S.—about twice as much as trains when measured in ton-miles, according to the Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics' latest data, for 2017. A ton-mile is one ton shipped for one mile. Credit: The Conversation While truck incidents involving hazardous materials don't look as dramatic as train derailments and are not as widely covered by news media,…