I. The Statutory Framework

The Hazardous Materials Transportation Act of 1975, as amended and recodified at 49 U.S.C. § 5101 et seq., establishes the federal framework for regulating the transport of materials deemed hazardous. Section 5103(b) provides the operative prohibition: “A person may offer a hazardous material for transportation in commerce, transport a hazardous material in commerce, or cause a hazardous material to be transported in commerce only if that person complies with regulations the Secretary prescribes.”¹

The implementing regulations, found at 49 CFR Parts 171 through 180, constitute one of the most comprehensive hazard classification systems in the federal regulatory apparatus. They divide all hazardous materials into nine classes: Class 1 (Explosives), Class 2 (Gases), Class 3 (Flammable Liquids), Class 4 (Flammable Solids), Class 5 (Oxidizers and Organic Peroxides), Class 6 (Toxic Substances and Infectious Substances), Class 7 (Radioactive Material), Class 8 (Corrosive Material), and Class 9 (Miscellaneous Dangerous Goods).²

The Hazardous Materials Table at 49 CFR § 172.101 is the index of the system. It assigns to each regulated material a proper shipping name, a four-digit United Nations identification number, a hazard class, a packing group, label codes, and packaging specifications. The table runs to approximately nine hundred pages. It includes hydrochloric acid (UN1789), formaldehyde solution (UN2209), hydrogen sulfide (UN1053), ammonia (UN1005), and biological substances known to contain pathogens (UN3373).³

The human body produces every one of these substances. It produces them continuously. It transports them across state lines in unpackaged, unplacarded, undocumented containers at speeds of up to seventy miles per hour, two hundred and thirty-three million times per day. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the DOT subagency charged with enforcement, has never opened a file.

II. Class 8: The Corrosive

Class 8, as defined at 49 CFR § 173.136, means “a liquid or solid that causes irreversible damage to human skin at the site of contact within a specified period of time.”⁴ The regulation proceeds to establish packing groups based on the severity and speed of tissue destruction: Packing Group I for materials that cause full-thickness destruction of intact skin within an observation period of sixty minutes after an exposure period of three minutes; Packing Group II for exposure periods of up to sixty minutes with observation up to fourteen days; and Packing Group III for exposure periods of up to four hours.

Hydrochloric acid is listed in the Hazardous Materials Table as UN1789, Class 8 (Corrosive Material). At concentrations exceeding twenty-five percent, it receives Packing Group I—the most restrictive classification. At concentrations between eight and twenty-five percent, Packing Group II. Transportation requires DOT-specification packaging, a CORROSIVE diamond placard on the vehicle, shipping papers listing the proper shipping name, hazard class, UN identification number, packing group, and total quantity, and an emergency response telephone number monitored at all times during transportation.⁵

The parietal cells of the human stomach secrete hydrochloric acid at a concentration that produces a luminal pH of 1.5 to 3.5. A typical adult stomach secretes approximately 1.5 liters of gastric juice per day, with an HCl content of approximately 0.17 normal and a pH of approximately 0.9 in pure parietal secretion.⁶ The concentration of HCl in the gastric lumen, approximately 0.15 to 0.5 percent by weight, falls below the Hazardous Materials Table’s threshold for the specific UN1789 packing group assignments.

This would be a compelling defense if the Class 8 definition were concentration-dependent. It is not. The definition at § 173.136 turns on a single factual question: does the liquid cause irreversible damage to human skin at the site of contact? The clinical literature on this point is not ambiguous. Gastroesophageal reflux disease, in which gastric acid contacts the esophageal epithelium, causes Barrett’s esophagus—a documented metaplastic transformation of the tissue lining, classified by the American College of Gastroenterology as irreversible in the absence of ablative intervention.⁷ Peptic ulcers, caused by the same acid acting on gastric or duodenal mucosa, produce visible tissue destruction that can progress to perforation. Dental erosion from chronic acid exposure has been documented at pH values as high as 5.5.⁸

The substance is hydrochloric acid. Its CAS number is 7647-01-0. It is listed in the Hazardous Materials Table. It demonstrably causes irreversible tissue damage. The human body produces 1.5 liters of it per day and transports it continuously without a single compliant container in the vehicle. The shipping name is Hydrochloric acid. The identification number is UN1789. The placard is a white-over-black diamond reading CORROSIVE. No vehicle in America has ever displayed one for its driver.

III. Division 6.2: The Biological Hazard

Division 6.2, as defined at 49 CFR § 173.134, means “a material known or reasonably expected to contain a pathogen.” The regulation further defines a pathogen as “a microorganism (including bacteria, viruses, parasites, and fungi) or other agent, such as a proteinaceous infectious particle (prion) that can cause disease in humans or animals.”⁹

The regulation divides infectious substances into two categories. Category A (UN2814 for substances affecting humans) covers materials “in a form capable of causing permanent disability or life-threatening or fatal disease in otherwise healthy humans.” Category B (UN3373, “Biological substance, Category B”) covers infectious substances not meeting Category A criteria. The distinction is one of severity. Both categories are regulated hazardous materials subject to DOT jurisdiction.

Human blood is shipped under these regulations every day. Diagnostic laboratories, blood banks, hospitals, and research institutions in the United States ship millions of human biological specimens annually as UN3373, Biological substance, Category B. The packaging requirements are specified at 49 CFR § 173.199 and IATA Packing Instruction 650: a primary watertight receptacle, a secondary watertight packaging with absorbent material between the two layers sufficient to absorb the entire contents of the primary receptacle, and a rigid outer packaging with minimum dimensions of 100 millimeters on each side. The package must be marked with the UN3373 diamond, the proper shipping name “Biological substance, Category B,” and sender and recipient addresses with telephone numbers.¹⁰

The human body contains approximately five liters of this regulated substance. It also contains cerebrospinal fluid, pleural fluid, peritoneal fluid, synovial fluid, amniotic fluid, and saliva—all of which are explicitly enumerated in OSHA’s Bloodborne Pathogens Standard at 29 CFR § 1910.1030 as materials requiring universal precautions because they may contain bloodborne pathogens including HIV, hepatitis B virus, and hepatitis C virus.¹¹

The containment system of the human body consists of the epidermis (a keratinized stratified squamous epithelium approximately 1.5 millimeters thick), subcutaneous fascia, and clothing. None of these layers has been certified to meet DOT specification packaging requirements. The epidermis is not watertight in the regulatory sense—it is perforated by approximately two million sweat glands and five million hair follicles that provide continuous pathways between the interior and the external environment.¹² No absorbent material is interposed between the primary and secondary containment layers. The outer packaging—clothing—varies by season, personal preference, and the decisions of a person who may or may not be aware that they are functioning as a dangerous goods container.

The Department of Transportation has published detailed regulations governing the safe packaging, labeling, and documentation of five milliliters of human blood drawn into a vacuum tube at a clinic. It has issued no corresponding regulation for the daily interstate transportation of the five liters from which that sample was drawn. The sample requires triple packaging, a UN3373 diamond, and shipping papers. The source requires a driver’s license.

IV. Class 7: The Radioactive Source

Class 7, Radioactive Material, is defined at 49 CFR § 173.403 as any material containing radionuclides where both the activity concentration and the total activity in the consignment exceed the values specified in the regulations.¹³ The general threshold for classification as radioactive material under DOT regulations is a specific activity exceeding 70 becquerels per gram (0.002 microcuries per gram).

The human body is radioactive. This is not a metaphor, an approximation, or a rhetorical device. It is a measurement. Potassium-40, a naturally occurring radioisotope with a half-life of 1.248 billion years, constitutes approximately 0.012 percent of all natural potassium. A healthy adult body contains approximately 140 grams of potassium. The resulting potassium-40 content produces approximately 4,400 becquerels of continuous ionizing radiation—roughly 4,300 nuclear decay events per second, each emitting a 1.46 MeV gamma ray or a 1.31 MeV beta particle.¹⁴

Carbon-14, with a half-life of 5,730 years, contributes an additional approximately 3,700 becquerels per person. The total natural radioactivity of the average human body is therefore approximately 8,000 becquerels, or roughly 120 becquerels per kilogram of body mass.¹⁵

The body’s specific activity—approximately 0.12 becquerels per gram—falls below the 70 Bq/g threshold that would trigger formal DOT Class 7 classification. The Department can claim, with narrow technical accuracy, that the human body is not a regulated radioactive source. This is true in the same way that a swimming pool is not the ocean: the classification threshold was set to capture concentrated sources, not diffuse ones. The total activity, however, remains 8,000 becquerels. To place this figure in context: a standard household smoke detector contains a sealed americium-241 source of approximately 33,300 becquerels.¹⁶ The Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires a general license for the possession of that source and imposes disposal requirements when the detector is discarded. The human body’s total radioactivity is approximately one-quarter that of a smoke detector.

There are approximately 330 million human bodies in the United States. Their combined radioactivity is approximately 2.64 × 10¹² becquerels, or 2,640 gigabecquerels. This is roughly equivalent to 79 million smoke detectors operating simultaneously without shielding across every road, building, and public space in the country. No general license has been issued. No disposal plan has been filed. No ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) program has been established for a population of mobile, unshielded sources that sleep in beds, ride in elevators, and sit in traffic at concentrations far exceeding any scenario contemplated by the NRC’s emergency planning guidelines.

V. Division 6.1: The Toxic Inventory

Division 6.1, defined at 49 CFR § 173.132, covers materials “known to be toxic to humans so as to afford a hazard to health during transportation, or which, in the absence of adequate data on human toxicity, are presumed to be toxic to humans.”¹⁷ The Hazardous Materials Table includes, among thousands of other entries, formaldehyde (UN2209), hydrogen sulfide (UN1053), and ammonia (UN1005). The human body produces all three.

Formaldehyde is an endogenous metabolite generated during the normal catabolism of serine, glycine, methionine, and choline. Peer-reviewed studies have measured endogenous formaldehyde concentrations in human blood at approximately 2.6 micrograms per gram—a steady-state concentration maintained by continuous enzymatic production and clearance.¹⁸ Formaldehyde is classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. It is listed in the Hazardous Materials Table. The body manufactures it around the clock.

Hydrogen sulfide, listed as UN1053, Division 2.3 (Toxic gas) with a subsidiary hazard of Division 2.1 (Flammable gas), is produced by sulfate-reducing bacteria in the human colon during the fermentation of sulfur-containing amino acids. Colonic hydrogen sulfide concentrations have been measured at 1,000 to 3,000 parts per million in the intestinal lumen.¹⁹ OSHA’s permissible exposure limit for hydrogen sulfide is 20 ppm as a ceiling concentration. The Immediately Dangerous to Life or Health concentration, established by NIOSH, is 50 ppm. The human colon routinely maintains concentrations sixty times the IDLH value. The container has no warning label.

Ammonia, listed as UN1005, Division 2.3 (Toxic gas), is produced by deamination of amino acids during normal protein metabolism. The human body produces approximately 1,000 millimoles of ammonia per day, most of which is converted to urea by the liver for excretion.²⁰ When hepatic function is impaired, as in cirrhosis, blood ammonia levels rise to concentrations that produce encephalopathy—documented proof that the substance, at the concentrations the body is capable of generating, is toxic to the central nervous system of the organism transporting it.

VI. The Shipping Paper Problem

Subpart C of 49 CFR Part 172, comprising sections 172.200 through 172.205, requires that every person who offers a hazardous material for transportation must prepare a shipping paper. The paper must contain, at minimum, the proper shipping name, the hazard class or division number, the four-digit UN identification number, the packing group, the total quantity of hazardous materials by net or gross mass or volume, and an emergency response telephone number that is monitored at all times the hazardous material is in transportation.²¹

Section 177.817 requires that a motor vehicle transporting hazardous materials must have the shipping paper within the driver’s reach while driving, or in a holder mounted to the inside of the driver’s side door. When the driver leaves the vehicle, the paper must be placed on the driver’s seat or in the door holder, visible to anyone entering the cab.²²

A compliant shipping paper for the average human commuter would list, at minimum:

UN1789, Hydrochloric acid solution, 8, III, 1.5 L
UN3373, Biological substance, Category B, 6.2, 5 L
UN2209, Formaldehyde solution, 8, III, trace
UN1053, Hydrogen sulfide, 2.3 (2.1), trace
UN1005, Ammonia, anhydrous, 2.3 (8), trace

The emergency response telephone number must be monitored at all times the material is in transportation. The closest existing analogue—911—does not satisfy this requirement, because the person answering the call is not trained in the specific hazards of the material being transported and does not have access to a Material Safety Data Sheet for the human body. Such a document has never been prepared.

The Federal Highway Administration reports approximately 233 million licensed drivers in the United States.²³ The Bureau of Transportation Statistics estimates that Americans make approximately 1.1 billion person-trips per day.²⁴ Each of these trips is an interstate or intrastate movement of multiple hazardous materials without a shipping paper. The daily paperwork deficit is approximately 1.1 billion unfiled documents.

VII. The Placarding Requirement

Section 172.504 of 49 CFR requires that each bulk packaging, freight container, unit load device, transport vehicle, or rail car containing any quantity of hazardous material must be placarded on each side and each end with the appropriate placard. Placards are diamond-shaped signs, at least 273 millimeters on each side, displaying the hazard class number and a symbol representing the nature of the hazard.²⁵

A vehicle transporting the average human body should display, at minimum, a white-over-black CORROSIVE placard (Class 8), a white INFECTIOUS SUBSTANCE placard with the biohazard symbol (Division 6.2), and, if one accepts the total-activity argument, a yellow-over-white RADIOACTIVE placard with the trefoil symbol (Class 7). The placards must be displayed on each side and each end of the vehicle. This means four CORROSIVE placards, four INFECTIOUS SUBSTANCE placards, and four RADIOACTIVE placards—a minimum of twelve diamond-shaped warning signs on a Honda Civic.

There are approximately 290 million registered motor vehicles in the United States.²⁶ The majority transport at least one human body on a regular basis. The collective placarding deficit is approximately 3.5 billion missing diamond-shaped signs. At approximately $3.50 per placard at commercial safety supply prices, the back-compliance cost for the American vehicle fleet is approximately $12.2 billion—roughly half of PHMSA’s annual budget multiplied by a hundred.

VIII. The Training and Endorsement Deficit

Section 172.704 of 49 CFR requires that each hazmat employee receive training that includes general awareness of the HMR, function-specific training for the employee’s job responsibilities, safety training, and security awareness training. The training must be completed within ninety days of employment and recurrent training must be provided at least once every three years.²⁷

For commercial motor vehicle operators, 49 CFR § 383.93 requires a HazMat endorsement on the commercial driver’s license, which requires passing a written knowledge test and a Transportation Security Administration security threat assessment including a criminal history records check and an intelligence-related background check.²⁸ Approximately 5.4 million commercial drivers hold active HazMat endorsements. They have been trained, tested, and security-screened for the privilege of transporting the contents of steel drums and pressurized cylinders across American highways.

The remaining 227.6 million licensed drivers transport the contents of their own abdominal cavities, circulatory systems, and intestinal tracts across the same highways without a single hour of DOT-mandated training, without a security threat assessment, and without a knowledge test on the emergency response procedures for the materials they carry inside their own bodies. The training gap is 227.6 million untrained hazardous materials operators.

IX. The Emergency Response Gap

The Emergency Response Guidebook, published jointly by the DOT, Transport Canada, and the Secretariat of Communications and Transport of Mexico, is the field reference used by first responders to identify hazards and take immediate protective actions at the scene of a hazardous materials transportation incident. The 2024 edition, distributed free to every fire department in the country, contains 384 pages of substance-specific guidance organized by UN identification number.²⁹

Guide 154 covers corrosive materials. It instructs responders to “isolate the spill or leak area immediately for at least 50 meters (150 feet) in all directions,” to wear positive-pressure self-contained breathing apparatus and chemical protective clothing, and to “do not touch damaged containers or spilled material without wearing appropriate protective equipment.” Guide 158 covers infectious substances. It instructs responders to use full structural firefighting protective clothing with SCBA, to establish a decontamination corridor, and to “prevent eating, drinking, and smoking in the affected area.”³⁰

When a tanker truck carrying hydrochloric acid overturns on Interstate 80, the ERG prescribes a 150-foot isolation perimeter, full chemical protective equipment, and a structured decontamination protocol. When a motor vehicle accident lacerates an occupant and distributes blood, gastric contents, and other biological materials across the roadway, first responders arrive in standard turnout gear. Some wear nitrile gloves. Many do not. No isolation perimeter is established for the corrosive and infectious materials now mixed with the debris field. No PHMSA notification is filed. No incident report is entered into the Hazardous Materials Information System.

The emergency response protocols for a five-gallon drum of hydrochloric acid and the response protocols for the 1.5 liters of hydrochloric acid inside the person standing next to the drum occupy entirely different regulatory universes. The acid is the same acid. The CAS number has not changed. The pH has not changed. The only thing that changed is the container.

X. The Enforcement Paradox

PHMSA’s Office of Hazardous Materials Enforcement conducts approximately 5,000 inspections per year and processes roughly 3,500 enforcement cases, resulting in approximately $30 million in annual civil penalties.³¹ The most frequently cited violations are failure to properly classify hazardous materials, failure to prepare shipping papers, failure to provide proper packaging, and failure to display placards. These are, without exception, the violations committed by every human being who enters a motor vehicle.

PHMSA’s penalty guidelines, published at 49 CFR Part 107, Appendix A, establish baseline penalties ranging from $500 for a failure to maintain training records to $75,000 for transporting hazardous materials without required packaging. The statutory maximum penalty for a knowing violation of the HMTA is $250,000 per violation per day, with criminal penalties of up to $500,000 and ten years’ imprisonment for violations committed willfully or recklessly.³²

If PHMSA assessed the minimum $500 penalty for each of the estimated 1.1 billion daily unpapered hazardous materials shipments conducted by American commuters, the daily penalty would be $550 billion. Annualized, this represents approximately $200 trillion in civil liability—roughly seven and a half times the gross domestic product of the United States.

The agency has assessed zero dollars. The compliance rate is zero. It has been zero since the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act was signed into law on January 3, 1975. The gap between the statute and its enforcement is not a few years of regulatory delay. It is fifty-one years of continuous, universal, documented noncompliance involving every licensed driver, every passenger, every pedestrian, and every person who has ever crossed a state line while in possession of a functioning digestive system.

XI. Conclusion

The evidence does not require creative interpretation. The Hazardous Materials Transportation Act prohibits the transportation of hazardous materials in commerce without compliance with federal regulations. The human body contains hydrochloric acid, a Class 8 corrosive listed in the Hazardous Materials Table. It contains human blood and biological fluids, Division 6.2 infectious substances for which the Department has published detailed triple-packaging requirements. It contains potassium-40, a radionuclide emitting 4,400 becquerels of continuous ionizing radiation. It contains formaldehyde, hydrogen sulfide, and ammonia, all Division 6.1 toxic substances listed in the Hazardous Materials Table with their own UN identification numbers.

The Department has classified each of these substances. It has assigned each of them a proper shipping name, a UN identification number, a hazard class, a packing group, and a set of packaging specifications tested and certified to prevent release during normal conditions of transportation. It has required shipping papers documenting the identity and quantity of these substances whenever they are transported. It has required diamond-shaped placards on every vehicle that carries them. It has required HazMat endorsements for the drivers and training for the shippers.

It has done all of this for every form in which these substances are transported—in drums, in cylinders, in bottles, in vials, in specimen tubes, in triple-packaged biological shipping containers—except one. The one container that produces all of them simultaneously, transports them continuously, and moves across state lines 1.1 billion times per day has never received a UN identification number. It has never been assigned a proper shipping name. No packing group has been designated. No placard has been designed.

The container is the human body. It weighs approximately 70 kilograms. It has been in continuous production for approximately 300,000 years. It is the most common dangerous goods container in the United States, the most frequently transported, and the only one that PHMSA has never inspected.

Ergo.