FMCSA partners with states to provide oversight for safety  requirements, including drug testing. Safety audits are required for all new entrants to the trucking industry and  are opportunities for FMCSA and states to provide educational and  technical assistance to new carriers, explain carriers’ responsibilities  under the federal requirements, and check for operational deficiencies. 2). Several Factors Contribute to the Challenges in FMCSA’s Current Drug Testing Program

A number of factors create challenges for FMCSA to ensure that all drivers  are in a drug testing program, drivers’ ability to avoid detection by a drug  test is limited, and drivers who test positive are removed from safety- sensitive duties until they have completed return-to-duty requirements. Limited resources  mean many carriers have little likelihood of ever being reviewed, which  may reduce the incentive for carriers to follow the regulations. Second, factors that contribute to drivers’ ability to  avoid detection include the ease with which the urine specimen can be  subverted because of noncompliant collection sites and the wide  availability of products for adulterating or replacing the urine sample. Third,  factors that lead to potentially thousands of drivers who test positive to  continue to drive without completing the required return-to-duty process  include the nonreporting of past positive drug tests by drivers to  prospective employers and self-employed owner-operators who fail to  remove themselves from service. For  example, GAO investigators, posing as commercial truck drivers needing  DOT drug tests, found that employees at 10 of 24 sites the investigators  tested failed to ask an investigator to empty his pants pockets to ensure no  items were present that could be used to adulterate the specimen. Widely Available Products and Other Methods Can Be Used to Subvert the Test

Several hundred products designed to dilute, cleanse, or substitute urine  specimens can be easily obtained. Compliance reviews are conducted for only a small percentage of carriers  each year. Reporting Positive Drug Test Information May Reduce the Number of Drivers Who Test Positive or Refuse to Test Yet Continue to Drive

Two key options have been suggested to reduce the number of drivers  who test positive or refuse to test and continue to drive without going  through a return-to-duty process. The options—developing a national  database of drug and alcohol testing results that carriers could query, and  encouraging or compelling states to suspend the commercial driver’s  license (CDL) of a driver who tests positive—differ in their potential  effectiveness and feasibility, as shown in table 4. For example, while FMCSA has a rule-making process under way to improve  the enforcement of safety audits for new entrants and has plans to initiate a  rule-making process to implement a national database, these actions have yet  to come to fruition, and FMCSA may have to seek additional authority to  ensure service agents report to a database. FMCSA’s rule-making process will  also need to consider driver protections and a process by which information  can be corrected or removed. A federal ban on  subversion products also faces challenges in that it would be difficult to  enforce and may not have a significant deterrent effect. Any of these options for improving FMCSA’s drug testing program would  require either additional resources or a transfer of resources funding other  initiatives that also work to improve road safety. GAO staff who made major contributions to this report are  listed in appendix V.

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

To determine the factors that contribute to the challenges of ensuring all  drivers are in a drug testing program, limiting drivers’ ability to subvert a  drug test, and keeping drivers off the road once they are found to test  positive, we reviewed Department of Transportation (DOT) and Federal  Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) regulations, policies, and  reports and conducted interviews with individuals from FMCSA and DOT’s  Office of Drug and Alcohol Policy and Compliance (ODAPC) and the  Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Substance Abuse and  Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to understand the drug  testing process and how carrier compliance with drug testing regulations  is evaluated and to identify the factors that contribute to the challenges  faced by FMCSA.
Why GAO Did This Study

Federal law requires commercial drivers to submit urine specimens for drug testing. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is responsible for ensuring that motor carriers comply with these regulations. Recent reports have raised concerns that some drivers may not be tested, some may be tested but avoid detection, and some may test positive but continue to drive. GAO was asked to look at these challenges. This report reviews (1) the factors that contribute to challenges related to drug testing and (2) the various options that exist to address these challenges. GAO obtained information from a wide variety of stakeholders in the drug testing industry, and analyzed data from FMCSA and others to determine the potential effectiveness of various options.

What GAO Found

Many factors contribute to the challenges of detecting drivers who are using illegal drugs and keeping them off the road until they complete the required return-to-duty (treatment) process. Factors contributing to drivers not being in a drug testing program include FMCSA's limited oversight resources for all carriers and limited enforcement options for safety audits of new carriers. Although FMCSA and its state partners review thousands of carriers each year, these reviews touch about 2 percent of the industry. As a result, carriers have limited incentives to follow the regulations. Factors contributing to failures to detect drug use include the ease of subverting the urine test, either because collection sites are not following protocols or because drivers are using products that are widely available to adulterate or substitute urine specimens. For example, GAO investigators, posing as commercial truck drivers needing drug tests, found that employees at 10 of 24 collection sites tested did not ask the investigator to empty his pants pockets, as they are required to do, to ensure he was not carrying adulterants or substitutes. Factors contributing to drivers testing positive yet continuing to drive include drivers not divulging past drug test history, carriers' failure to conduct thorough background checks on a driver's past drug testing history, and self-employed owner-operators' failure to remove themselves from service. GAO's analysis identified the following options as having the greatest potential for addressing these challenges: (1) For increasing the number of drivers tested: strengthen the enforcement of safety audits for new carriers. Stiffer requirements for having a testing program will likely result in more new entrants having effective drug testing programs. DOT has begun this improvement. (2) For reducing opportunities to subvert the test: additional authority to levy fines when collection sites do not follow federal protocols. This could decrease the opportunity to subvert the test. Also, congressional action to ban subversion products at the federal level could make these products more difficult to obtain. (3) For reducing the number of drivers who test positive and continue to drive: a national database of drug testing information. This would allow for more thorough checking of applicants' past test results. FMCSA has begun to lay the groundwork for a database, but FMCSA may need additional authority to ensure accurate reporting of information. Also, using the database to encourage states to suspend a driver's commercial driver's license after a positive drug test or refusal to test would be a more direct way to compel drivers to complete the return-to-duty process. Any of these options would require either additional resources or a transfer of resources that fund other safety-related initiatives, and some of the options require federal or state legislation and rule making. A national database would have to consider driver protections and a process by which information can be corrected or removed.