09

Drugs and alcohol: what is prohibited, when you are tested, and the Clearinghouse

This is the program that can end a driving career faster than anything else in the rulebook, and most of it happens away from the road. What the rules prohibit outright, what triggers a test, what the numbers mean, and how a driver works back from a violation.

In this chapter

• +Who the program covers, what a safety-sensitive function is, and the conduct the rules prohibit outright
• +The kinds of test, what triggers each, and why a refusal is treated as a positive result
• +What follows a violation — removal, evaluation, the return-to-duty path, and what the Clearinghouse holds