Congress Proposes Law to Reduce Accidents Involving Tractor Trailer Drivers Under the Influence of Drugs or Alcohol
Congress is proposing a new law that would tighten up the federal regulations designed to keep unsafe semi truck drivers with drug and/or alcohol abuse problems off of the roads. In our Shorstein & Lasnetski, LLC Florida Injury Attorney Blog, we often discuss the problems of serious semi truck accidents as well as the poor enforcement of rules designed to drug and alcohol test semi truck drivers and keep those drivers with positive drug and alcohol tests off of the road. Estimates show that between 1.3% and 2.8% tractor trailer drivers test positive for drugs under random testing. So, for every 100 semi trucks you see on the road (and there are plenty in the Jacksonville, Florida area with the intersection of I-95 and I-10), it is feasible that 1-3 of the drivers may be under the influence of illegal drugs at any given time.
Some of the problems we have seen with semi truck drivers and drug and alcohol tests after serious accidents include:
- semi truck drivers failing to take the required drug and alcohol tests after causing an accident,
- semi truck drivers, their trucking company employers and testing facilities failing to report positive post-accident drug and/or alcohol tests,
- trucking companies failing to do proper background checks on new semi truck driver applicants to learn if they have a positive drug and/or alcohol test in their past, and
- semi truck drivers cheating on drug and/or alcohol tests.
The new law would only address some of those problems. It would establish a national database and require medical personnel and trucking company employers to report all positive drug and alcohol tests so that they would be reflected in the database. The law would also require employers to check the database before hiring a new semi truck driver. Of course, this law would not do much to address semi truck drivers failing to take the required test or cheating on a test with another person's sample, but it would help establish a system where positive drug and alcohol tests can be documented and accessible to trucking companies who will then know more, and be obligated to know more, about the drivers they may hire.
For those of us who represent people who have been injured in an accident with a semi truck, or a family member of someone killed in a semi truck accident, it will give us extra ammunition to hold semi truck drivers and trucking companies accountable when they fail to follow the rules and hire unsafe drivers they knew or should have known were dangerous due to drug or alcohol use.
