scary observation

This morning I was observing the traffic types and notices 2 big tanker trucks whoosh by. I looked up the green chemical warnings on the back and this is what I found:

Anhydrous Ammonia, which is absolutely terrifying to me. Check out the first aid descriptions:

http://www.mda.state.mn.us/chemicals/spills/ammoniaspills/firstaid.htm

An accident involving one of these would warrant the evacuation of most of our area, something I doubt our crowded streets could handle. I remember hearing about residential evacuations (and they are spelled out on the website above) involving a semi crash... The houses were adjacent to the freeway, fairly far away compared to our city zoning. What would happen is this happened in our densely packed neighborhoods? At rush hour - when I observed the tankers - emergency response would likely be slow at best because of all the out-of-city commuting traffic... and an evacuation would be 'difficult' to say the least.

Anhydrous Ammonia is commonly used on farm fields all across the country. I can't see any reason why the trucks would be using Cedar, other than it provides a short cut from 35W, and coming into the city via Hwy 77 would make sense. This further supports our opinion that Cedar Ave needs serious attention in order to reduce it's 'short-cut appeal'. This may be an extreme example, but a valid one. I would imagine that the 2 trucks I saw were not the first, or the last to ever use Cedar.

I'm also sure this isn't the only chemical that gets shipped down this corridor. This one particularly scared me, especially when considering how fast the trucks were traveling. I KNOW that county roads are supposed to be open to all legal vehicles... but in a tight residential area there NEEDS to be some thought applied to this (if there hasn't been already). Are there safety considerations in place? Have they been updated as traffic counts increase (double, triple, etc) This seems like a disaster waiting to happen.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has observed chemical tankers and/or hazardous material on Cedar. Please feel free to comment with your concern.