FMCSA to Cut Rate of Driver Drug Testing to 25%

Interesting in light of the Land Air Express of New England shutdown over related concerns that the FMCSA decided to decrease the drug testing rate by half – from 50% to 25%.  Such actions and the recent incident we are certain are not related; but fantastic that this change has been made!

The FMCSA top administrator Scott Darling and his staff must should be saluted for their willingness to temper a powerful but unnecessarily intrusive and burdensome tool.  They have objectively and politically –free calculated  what makes sense from a cost-benefits perspective in a true Best Practices spirit as applied to public policy; we need to be regulated, but not overregulated, and if we can solve a problem more surgically and be less intrusive and less burdensome on industry, let’s have the courage to do it.  The FMCSA had personal courage to take this decision, we want to thank them

This decrease will not reduce the threat and effectiveness of drug testing and the public safety will not be effected.  It will very much on the other hand reallocate misused limited capital and personnel resources from policing drivers to the business of trucking – from driver retention and benefits to the actual business of getting freight picked up and delivered on a timely basis.

We salute the civil servants who had the courage to make this change.  It isn’t easy working in a bureaucracy, and things always seem simple to those of us in industry who are looking at the issue from a more narrow perspective.  The individual civil servants who effected this rule change studied the issue from a wider perspective and in a multi-disciplinary way; and then they had the courage to follow the facts to the logical conclusion and change policy. We in industry must realize that the individuals who regulate us are so severely punished when they make mistakes and any change exposes them to such a risk.  Again, on the behalf of an organization that is not a trucker but a purchaser of trucking services, we appreciate your personal courage exhibited by making this decision.  Thank you FMCSA