Back to List

ATA Urges Congress to Create a Centralized Clearinghouse for Drug and Alcohol Tests

There are dangerous loopholes that prevent the trucking industry from doing all it can to prevent substance abusers from getting behind the wheel of a truck. A patchwork of state laws is not enough; we need a unified national strategy.

DRUG AND ALCOHOL ABUSE affects all levels of society and costs the American public over $181 million in lost productivity, health care and other expenses annually. There are few places where eliminating the problem is more important than in the trucking industry, where more than 3.4 million people get behind the wheel of a large truck. Trucking has worked diligently to eradicate drug and alcohol abuse from its workforce. We’ve made great strides in recent years, but now, trucking is looking to the government for help.

Last year, trucking had one of the safest driving records in motor carrier history, posting a 3.7 percent decline in truck-involved fatalities and a record-low crash rate. This came amid a comprehensive highway safety initiative that includes a call for universal primary safety belt laws in all 50 states, greater enforcement of traffic laws against unsafe driving actions around large trucks and an electronically controlled limit on the maximum speed of large trucks to 68 miles per hour.

But for all of trucking’s hard work, and the fact that drug abuse in the trucking industry is less than half of that in the general workforce, one large piece of the safety puzzle is still missing: a centralized clearinghouse for positive drug and alcohol test results that will allow carriers to more effectively screen new hires.

The American Trucking Associations is urging Congress to authorize and fund a centralized clearinghouse for positive drug and alcohol testing results of commercial motor vehicle drivers to ensure that motor carrier employers are aware of applicants’ previous positive test results during the hiring process. Such a clearinghouse will improve the industry’s ability to keep alcohol and drug abusers off the road and improve safety on the nation’s roadways.

For its part, trucking has been engaged in a decade-long struggle to close the dangerous loopholes that exist in a motor carrier’s ability to appropriately screen drivers for prior substance abuse.ATA began lobbying for a national clearinghouse of positive test results in the 1990s.

And we’ve made progress. In 2004,the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) favorably reported to Congress on the merits of capturing positive test results in a centralized clearinghouse in lieu of reporting this information to state licensing agencies. Today, five states have laws instituting some form of reporting of positive drug test results. But they also recognize that a national problem calls for a national solution.

These state laws are good first steps. As measured by a percentage of positive test results, drug abuse in the trucking industry is less than half of that found in the general workforce. The percentage has remained around 2 percent of the truck driver population since required testing began in 1995. But trucking is interstate in nature. And state-by-state action will result in a patchwork quilt of differing reporting requirements by different people with different commercial driver licensing actions or outcomes for truck drivers, depending on which state issued their license. ATA and its members believe a national clearinghouse is the more appropriate solution.

ATA’s goal is to keep substance abusers from getting behind the wheel of a truck. This can happen if the loophole in the current law and regulations is corrected. The motor carrier industry is very proud of its record in reducing drug and alcohol abuse but despite the best efforts of the motor carriers, there are thousands of truck drivers who have an undetected drug abuse problem.

This is simply unacceptable. FMCSA studied this issue and found that a centralized clearinghouse for drug test results is feasible, cost-effective and, more importantly, could improve transportation safety. The agency has stated that a clearinghouse is more desirable than the current method of self-reporting. Unfortunately, FMCSA has yet to act on ATA’s request to create a national positive drug and alcohol test results clearinghouse. Without this clearinghouse, the efforts of the trucking industry to rid itself of drug and alcohol abusing drivers will remain stalled.