Trucking Alliance Pulls Hard for Hair-Testing
J.B Hunt is among the member companies of the Trucking Alliance seeking an exemption to let them conduct hair-testing for pre-employment drug testing of driver applicants. Photo: Drivewyze
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J.B Hunt is among the member companies of the Trucking Alliance seeking an exemption to let them conduct hair-testing for pre-employment drug testing of driver applicants. Photo: Drivewyze
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The Alliance for Driver Safety & Security (a.k.a. “Trucking Alliance”) has submitted a set of detailed comments to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that strongly support a petition calling for motor carriers to be exempt from having to use urinalysis to test for drug use by CDL driver applicants. Four of the six petitioners are member companies of the Trucking Alliance.
If the exemptions are granted, the petitioning carriers will not have to wait for FMCSA to initiate and complete a rulemaking that would allow hair-testing in lieu of urinalysis or one that would mandate hair-testing instead of urinalysis.
According to a Feb. 16 letter to FMCSA containing the comments (Docket FMCSA-2017-0002) and signed by Trucking Alliance Managing Director Lane Kidd, the petitioners seek to instead use hair analysis to meet federal drug test requirements for commercial driver job applicants.
“Hair-testing is a more reliable (albeit twice as expensive) method for identifying lifestyle drug users, than the less expensive and less reliable urine exam,” states Kidd.
Kidd notes in the letter that the Alliance “concurs with petitioners in their stated reasons for deserving an exemption, but adds that “in the broader context, the petitioners are utilizing a more reliable method [hair-testing] for identifying drug users than the vast majority of U.S. freight and logistics carriers.”
He then contends that the petitioners are “deserving of an exemption and for the following public safety reasons:”
The role drugs play in large-truck accidents. “’Lifestyle drug users’ have no place in the commercial truck driver profession. Truck driving is an occupation that exposes the general public to possible safety risks, because motorists share the highways with thousands of commercial …Read the rest of this story
