Well, our Galveston maritime lawyers predicted that shippers would speak out against the recent proposal to the IMO to require accurate weighing of each separate container loaded aboard ships. It didn’t take shippers long to react.
The European Shippers’ Council has already lodged its protest against the recommended requirements. The proposed requirement to weigh each container and provide a certificate with that weight before a container can be loaded and exported follows a chain of mounting evidence that inaccurately declared container weights are responsible for a huge number of accidents in the shipping container supply chain. Our Galveston maritime lawyers point out that the types of serious accidents resulting from inaccurately declared container weights include:
Collapsed stacks of shipping containers on board shipping vessels. Collapsing container stacks could not only crush workers, but could cause a ship’s weight load to shift, leading to swamping of vessels or containers lost overboard.
Capsizing of overloaded shipping vessels, or vessels where the container load suddenly shifts, unbalancing the vessel.
Truck rollovers caused by excess weight or shifting cargo.
IT Club research reveals 357 accident claims costing about $12.8 million over the last 6 years. These 357 accident claims are attributed to poor container stowage and handling. These accidents represent more than 10% of all supply chain claims in that time period, the largest single cause of container supply chain accidents.
The proposal to the IMO constitutes one attempt to reverse this ominous trend in the global shipping industry. The proposal comes from a large group of concerned organizations, including the Dutch and Danish governments, the World Shipping Council, the International Chamber of Shipping, and BIMCO, among many others.
Shippers, confronted with a proposal that could drastically change the way they do business, are figuratively circling their wagons, trying to fend off the proposed requirements. The shippers are trying to shift the blame for the serious accidents to poor shipping vessel maintenance, inadequate lashing of containers in a stack, and the practice of shifting about 10% of containers from the stack intended in the stowage plan to different stacks. It sounds like a fairly standard blame game to our Galveston maritime lawyers.
Shippers point to the existing SOLAS regulations, which are rarely enforced and do not require actual weighing of individual containers, as sufficient safeguard for shipping vessels, industry workers, and others. But existing SOLAS regulations have proven inadequate to the task of preventing and curbing accidents resulting from inaccurately declared shipping container weights. That’s why shipping industry minds got together and drafter the new proposal to the IMO in the first place.
Our Galveston maritime lawyers hope that good sense prevails and the proposal to tighten up the shipping weight declaration process goes through. All of us, on land and sea, are at risk from inaccurately declared container contents.
If you’re wondering what role the IMO plays in all of this, please consult our FAQ on the subject.
(Source: The Loadstar, 6/20/2012)