Since trucker Nathan Weidert submitted his petition to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's public docket, asking for rulemaking to prevent carriers from ordering up random drug screens when a driver is off-duty, he said he's heard nothing directly from the agency about status of the ask.
FMCSA confirmed to Overdrive yesterday that Weidert's petition is under official consideration, and along with more than 30 others (including Todd Daum's ask for a rule requiring install of carbon monoxide detectors in sleeper trucks) it's posted to the agency's petitions website where all such active petitions live.
Interested parties can't yet comment on it, an agency rep noted, yet added that FMCSA reviews every petition it receives and can issue a decision granting or denying it outright, without public comment. From there, then:
- If granted, the agency would proceed to the rulemaking process, including public comment on any proposed changes.
- Any rulemaking's final outcome would include analysis of those comments.
Juding by Overdrive reader commentary, the experience that drove Nathan Weidert to launch his effort to officially bar off-duty drug screens isn't exactly uncommon. From our prior report:
Weidert had been driving seasonally for the company and was at the very end of his contract term. "There was no more work scheduled for them," he wrote in the petition.
He told Overdrive the company nonetheless selected him for random testing and that, when he objected that he was no longer under the company's employment, reported the refusal to test to the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse, necessitating burdensome return-to-duty procedures on his part to be authorized to operate a truck again.
"Too many times very suspiciously I've been tested as soon as I go on my break," noted one reader in comments under the story. "That's a wasted day that was my home time. I'm out for a month or more at a time," only then when off-duty at home to be pulled for a random.
"There's got to be a time where a driver is off that means exactly that," the reader added.
[Related: Should off-duty random drug tests be allowed by FMCSA? Trucker says no]
Yet the reality is current regulations are what they are, as illustrated by another commenter: "Hassling folks on their way out the door is bad form, but if truly random then someone is going to get a notification late in the game. It’s a half-day inconvenience, but nothing compared" to the Return-to-Duty process any operator flagged with a test refusal in the Clearinghouse will have to go through, as happened to Weidert.
"Pick your administrative poison," the reader added.
It's not exactly uncommon, another commenter noted, for even employed drivers to work actively with other companies. In Weidert's case, he was at the end of one seasonal employment term with no more scheduled work there and getting started with a different employer, when the first one ordered the test. "How the heck is he supposed to go take a [urine] test for the other job when he is currently working" a different one? the commenter asked.
Turns out, Nathan Weidert told Overdrive, that was the deciding factor in his refusal to test's ultimate adjudication, so to speak. His record in the Clearinghouse was cleared, ultimately, after he exhausted every review-ask opportunity he had there and appealed directly to the White House early this year.
[Related: Trucker locked in FMCSA's Drug and Alcohol 'Clearinghouse jail' fights to break out]
In a letter posted to him in late August from FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs, the agency noted it was able to confirm he was actively working for the second employer when the other called him up for a random.
Thus, Barrs' letter said, "FMCSA determined that you could not have reasonably submitted to a DOT random drug test ... under the specific facts of your case. For that reason, FMCSA granted your request for correction" of the Clearinghouse record under the Privacy Act.
The effort to get back to where Nathan Weidert is today, his Clearinghouse record and CDL in good standing, still stings, at once, he noted, and he's hopeful for the ultimate outcome of the petition to disallow off-duty randoms for all drivers.
One among Overdrive's readers lauded the effort this way:
"This CDL Holder has been to he** and back with what this guy has been through, and now he is taking his own time and energy to help all CDL Holders."
[Related: Department of Justice officially reschedules marijuana: What truckers need to know]
For rest of you here, what do you think? You may not be able to file public comment on an off-duty-randoms regulatory proposal yet, and it's too early to say whether you ever will or not. But you can certainly weigh in here to signal your support, disapproval and/or direct experience. Weigh in via the poll module below.
