Personal Injury Law

GAO finds loopholes in drug tests for truckers

By Brian F. LaBovick, Esq.

Are drug tests for truckers important to our safety on the highway?  The next important question that needs to be answered is "Are the drug tests tamper proof?".  According to undercover federal investigators, it is not difficult for truck drivers to cheat on "random drug tests".  This is alarming, because, the tests are designed to catch truck drivers who are on the road and using drugs.

In an NBC news reports, undercover investigators with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, used bogus truck driver’s licenses to gain access to 24 drug-testing sites. An alarming rate of 75 percent “failed to restrict access to items that could be used to adulterate or dilute the [urine] specimen, meaning that running water, soap, or air freshener was available in the bathroom during the test.”

In addition, the report found that the GAO team was able to buy drug-masking products over the Web and was able to mix them with real specimens at the drug-testing sites “without being caught by site collectors”.

Click Here to read more on this GAO report from NBC.com

Full post as published by LaBovick Injury Law Blog on November 02, 2007 (boomark / email).