FMCSA’s drug testing rate increases to 50% on January 1, 2020
In today’s Federal Register, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) announced that the random drug testing rate for FMCSA drivers will increase to 50%, effective on January 1, 2020. (The alcohol testing rate remains unchanged at 10%).
FMCSA’s random rate is determined by the overall positivity rate for the trucking industry. When the overall positivity rate was below 1%, the random rate was 25%.
In 2016 and 2017, the overall experience was 0.7% and 0.8% respectively.
In 2018, however, the positivity rate for drivers jumped to 1%. For every 100 tests (pre-employment, random, reasonable suspicion, post-accident, return-to-duty and follow-up), 1 test was positive.
The combined effect of doubling the number of random drug tests, along with required reporting on the Clearinghouse, means that SAPs should expect to see a significant uptick in their number of SAP cases.
FMCSA’s announcement is only one page in the Federal Register. It is an interesting, brief read. (It starts at the very bottom of page 1 and continues to page 2).
|
