A tanker with a rated capacity of 14 tons was found carrying 22 tons of crude oil, prompting authorities in Yulin, Shaanxi Province, to establish a dedicated task force to address overloading in hazardous goods transportation.

According to CCTV News, on the evening of October 10, the program "Focus Interview" aired a report titled "One Paper for Clearance, Risks All the Way," which exposed long-term overloading in crude oil transport by Jingbian County Xingda Comprehensive Development Co., Ltd. in Yulin City, Shaanxi Province.

Following the broadcast, the Yulin Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government immediately formed a joint task force overnight, comprising departments of transportation, market regulation, emergency management, and public security, and dispatched it to the scene to conduct a special investigation and handle the issues, strictly punishing illegal and non-compliant activities in accordance with laws and regulations, and holding relevant parties accountable.

At the same time, a city-wide comprehensive investigation and rectification of the entire hazardous goods transport industry chain was launched to draw lessons from the case, effectively maintain order in the hazardous chemicals transportation sector, and safeguard the lives and property of the public.

Since the central work safety assessment and inspection for the second and third quarters was officially launched, the efforts have been more intensive and the requirements stricter than before, and for the first time, a special inspection of regulatory and law enforcement issues was conducted.

Road transportation of hazardous goods is a high-risk industry, so the state has established stringent standards aimed at preventing major and serious production safety accidents from the source. However, inspection teams found in some places problems such as overloaded hazardous goods vehicles, falsified equipment inspection reports, and loopholes in the electronic waybill management system, which require serious attention.

Jingbian County Xingda Comprehensive Development Co., Ltd. is located in Yulin City, Shaanxi Province, and is a company primarily engaged in crude oil transportation, with more than 60 tanker trucks. In mid-June, when reporters accompanied the central work safety assessment and inspection team to the site, no issues were initially found.

However, after logging into the backend electronic waybill system, it was discovered that the tanker trucks' records were unusual: from January 1, 2024, to June 18, 2026, the tonnage utilization rate was consistently 68.3%.

Yuan Yulu, legal representative of Jingbian County Xingda Comprehensive Development Co., Ltd., said: "If filled to capacity, it would exceed the limit. Filling by volume could reach 20 tons." A 68.3% tonnage utilization rate means the tanker trucks were only loaded with about two-thirds of the tank body's crude oil.

Loading less to avoid overloading does make sense, but wasting a large amount of capacity over a long period does not align with commercial logic. So how much were they actually loading? The inspection team requested to see the actual delivery notes.

At the inspection team's request, the company's responsible person could only produce a few real transport documents. The invoicing party was an oilfield, and Xingda was transporting oil for them. Upon comparison, problems were indeed found.

Taking a tanker with the tail number 3943 as an example, its factory report stated a rated load of 14 tons, but the receipt showed it carried 22.14 tons, an overload of 58%. Subsequently, the assessment and inspection team also checked tanker trucks with license plate tail numbers 6163, 6782, and 7684, and found that all were overloaded, with overloads ranging from 42% to 58%.

The oil tanker is a closed tank body, so why would it be so overweight? Taking the tanker with tail number 3943 as an example, how could a tank body with a rated load of 14 tons hold 22 tons of crude oil?

After various efforts, reporters found a surveillance video accidentally captured on the day of the inspection, June 18. It turned out that two tanker trucks had the same license plate number, both 3943—one was running on the road, and the other was undergoing inspection. However, the two tank bodies had different shapes, different lengths of reflective strips, and different positions of flammable labels. Clearly, these were not the same tank body at all.

Whether this constitutes illegal replacement of tank bodies requires further investigation by relevant departments.

Reporter: "How many tons do you roughly ship each month now?" Yuan Yulu: "A total of more than 20,000 tons per month." Reporter: "When did you start transporting goods?" Yuan Yulu: "We started in 2010." Reporter: "It has been 16 years now. Are you aware of the overloading?" Yuan Yulu: "Yes, I am." Reporter: "How do you explain this?" Yuan Yulu: "We will rectify it immediately."

Experts say that hazardous goods vehicles are different from ordinary trucks, and once overloaded, the consequences are far more serious and can easily lead to major and serious safety accidents.

Wang Jinrong, an expert from the central work safety assessment and inspection team, said: "Once the medium goods inside leak, it can cause combustion and explosion, and may even involve highly toxic substances, posing very great social harm. Therefore, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Emergency Management, and the Ministry of Public Security regard the management of hazardous goods transport vehicles as a top priority."

So why was Xingda Company's overloading problem not discovered in a timely manner? In early September, the central work safety assessment and inspection team returned to Jingbian County for another in-depth investigation. The investigation found that the main reason was the failure at four levels.

Taking the tanker with tail number 3943 as an example, let's see how it passed through these four gates. First, the source loading stage failed in its review. When this vehicle went to the oil extraction station to load oil, the station should have verified its rated load, which is 14 tons, but in fact, it loaded 22 tons. This clearly violated Article 29 of the "Management Measures for Road Transportation Safety of Dangerous Goods," which states that "the loaded goods shall not exceed the rated load mass of the transport vehicle." Obviously, the oil extraction station did not fulfill its relevant duties.

The second gate: the transport enterprise did not truthfully fill out the waybill. In China, for dangerous goods to be transported on the road, a paper or electronic waybill must first be obtained, strictly implementing the "one vehicle, one trip, one waybill" system. The waybill for the tanker with tail number 3943 was filled out by the carrier, Xingda Company. Although it carried 22 tons of goods, it only filled in 12 tons to obtain the electronic waybill. In this regard, Xingda Company clearly neglected management and was lax in review.

In this way, the tanker with tail number 3943 slipped through the second gate and arrived at the third gate: the electronic waybill system. What is the electronic waybill system? Chen Yu, Director of the Freight Division of the Shaanxi Provincial Road Transport Development Center, said: "It mainly reflects the personnel, vehicle, and cargo information of the shipper and carrier, the category information of the transported goods, the route information, and the trajectory display during vehicle operation."

The state promotes the construction of electronic waybill systems in various places precisely to conduct full-chain dynamic supervision of road transportation of dangerous goods. However, because the Shaanxi electronic waybill system is not networked with the source weighbridge at the oil extraction station, it cannot obtain real front-end information. Therefore, it can only enter and retain information, but cannot verify it, and naturally cannot detect overloading.

Chen Yu said: "We are just a data entry system and cannot detect overloading. Because when the ministry designed the electronic waybill system at that time, it did not include this function. Overloading can only be reflected through road inspections and source loading." In some parts of China, to plug this loophole, local regulations have been enacted to mandate that electronic weighbridges of hazardous goods loading and unloading enterprises be connected to regulatory platforms, and then automatically compared with the weight declared in electronic waybills, forming a closed-loop warning. Shaanxi is precisely missing this key link.

Finally, the fourth gate—road inspection. Can the traffic management department responsible for road inspections detect overloading? The answer is: it is very difficult. First, there are many hazardous goods vehicles. As of the end of 2025, Shaanxi Province had nearly 25,000 registered road dangerous goods transport vehicles, with more than 2,000 in Jingbian alone. Second, traffic management departments only conduct spot checks on suspicious vehicles, and most of Xingda's routes are in remote areas, allowing it to engage in long-term overloading.

It is precisely because the shipper turned a blind eye, the carrier concealed the truth, the waybill system only retained information without verifying it, and road inspections were only spot checks that the overloading problem was difficult to detect.

Chen Yu said: "Later, we will upgrade and renovate to make up for the shortcomings." In addition to overloading in hazardous goods transport, the central work safety assessment and inspection team also found shocking cases of falsified inspection reports for hazardous goods vehicles.

According to regulations, the body of a hazardous goods vehicle must undergo an annual inspection, and the tank body must undergo periodic inspection every two years. The inspection is carried out by professional institutions, which issue inspection reports. This is an important measure to ensure the safe operation of vehicles on the road.

The inspection of hazardous goods vehicles is much stricter than that of ordinary trucks, with dozens of inspection items, and the vehicle technical grade must reach Level 1 before it can operate.

Wang Jinrong said: "Relevant national departments must attach great importance to this, because accidents involving dangerous goods transport vehicles are prone to occur and occur frequently. First, policy shortcomings must be further addressed, especially by forming comprehensive governance. For example, transportation, market regulation, emergency management, and public security departments must join forces and strengthen the construction of linked law enforcement mechanisms."

The problems reflected in the program are not isolated cases in this central work safety assessment and inspection. Hazardous goods transportation concerns public safety and allows no room for侥幸. Whether it is enterprises using system loopholes to make false declarations and engage in long-term overloading on the road, or testing institutions issuing false inspection reports, both are crossing the red line of public safety. If any link in hazardous goods transportation fails, it can lead to a catastrophic accident.

In response to the various safety hazards identified, relevant departments have required localities to strictly investigate and punish violations, urge the completion of regulatory shortcomings, consolidate safety responsibilities of all parties, and firmly uphold the safety production bottom line of hazardous goods transportation.