Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse deadline passes
Jan. 5 marked the deadline for motor carriers to run an annual Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse query on their drivers.
It was a race to the finish as hundreds of thousands of motor carriers and drivers needed to register and run the required queries over the final two months of the Clearinghouse’s inaugural year. As of press time, it was expected that many carriers failed to meet the deadline.
As part of the congressionally mandated Clearinghouse, motor carriers must run an annual query on their drivers.
Owner-operators under their own authority are required to conduct queries on themselves. Those who didn’t comply by the Jan. 5 deadline could be subject to a fine.
Numerous truck drivers complained that they were having difficulties registering for the Clearinghouse and that the agency’s assistance hotline was overloaded with calls. However, FMCSA did not extend the deadline.
According to FMCSA, annual queries must be run on drivers every 12 months. If carriers miss the 12-month mark, which would be Jan. 5 for drivers hired before Jan. 6, 2020, and use a driver without running a query, they would be in violation.
In addition, FMCSA said that if a motor carrier runs the query after the 12-month mark, it would be able to use that driver and not be due for another query within 12 months of the day the query was run. However, the agency said the motor carrier would still be in violation for not completing the query product for the previous year.
With that said, and contrary to other media reports, OOIDA confirmed that enforcement of the Clearinghouse query requirements will not happen during roadside inspections but rather during audits or investigations.
The focus of the Clearinghouse is to take disqualified drivers off the road, so motor carriers should do everything they can to register and run the necessary queries as soon as possible. A driver who gets in a crash before having a successful query would be putting himself and the motor carrier at significant risk. LL