The Department of Transportation is the federal government agency that is in charge of overseeing professional transportation regulation in the USA. This doesn’t mean anything to private citizens who drive cars just to get to and from work. However, for people who operate vehicles for a living, the DOT is the agency in the US government that all businesses must, ultimately, answer to. And one of the critical ways that regulations impact transportation businesses are in the area of drug testing.
However, while drug testing is mandated at the federal level, how businesses do it, and when regulations require it, changes based on the area of interest that the business operates.
Different Transportation Has Different Protocols
The role transportation plays in American life is varied, and much of it depends on the nature of the vehicle and the purpose. Some professional driving is to get people around a city in huge groups, as efficiently as possible, such as public transit like buses and trains. Other transportation is dedicated to carrying tons of freight across the highways of America to other cities or states.
In some cases, no roads are used at all. Freight hauling and passengers, for example, can also cross the country on the rail through the transcontinental railway. And for many people, and top priority freight, transport also occurs in the sky with planes. These different types of motor transportation and the different purposes they serve have distinct needs and characteristics and must be treated as such, even when it comes to how drug testing occurs.
Specific Agency Requirements
Because of this, even if someone undertakes DOT drug collector training, there may be different requirements for how and when the testing is appropriate. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for truck drivers operates under a different set of rules from the Federal Aviation Administration, and so different regulations apply for people that want to get DOT drug collector training.
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