Potentially explosive cargo, stressful week-long drives and unpredictable weather conditions are just a few of the many risks trucking company Quality Distribution Inc. (QD) has to overcome in transporting bulk items for clients such as DuPont, Bayer, Sunoco, ExxonMobil, Procter & Gamble and Unilever.

Since many of the goods carried by QD's trucks—among them plastics, dry and liquid food-grade items, and oil—will eventually be processed into other items, the contents of its trucks are typically in highly concentrated forms that can be poisonous or flammable if spilled.

"Transporting hazardous materials presents a real set of challenges," says Mike McDonald, vice president of enterprise risk management at Tampa-based QD. "We transport chemicals from a database numbering 15,000 substances, many of them lethal."