Last updated : December 16, 2024
The Department of Transportation (DOT) submitted its request for the hair test to replace the urine drug test in 2015. The request has been rolling back and forth through the proper channels for nearly two decades now. Nearly twenty years have passed with no actual proof of progress.
Originally introduced in the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was instructed to finish writing its guidelines by December 2016. That deadline sure came and went, didn’t it? Employers in the trucking industry still can’t submit hair specimens for safety-sensitive employee drug testing.
Whose foot is on the brake?
It appears the hold-up is regarding the HHS rule proposal that should a mandated employee test positive for drugs when submitting a hair specimen, they must take a urine drug test to confirm the result. Moreover, the urine specimen would likely be collected at the time the hair sample is submitted for testing.
That proposal falls short of what employers in the trucking industry are expecting to happen.
The original intent was to replace the urinalysis with the hair test. If the urinalysis must be used as confirmation, it becomes a problem in the eyes of many.
Here’s why:
- A second test causes a greater cost for employers.
- Drivers are held in limbo waiting for the confirmation result.
- If a “just in case” urine specimen is collected at the time the hair sample is taken, it can complicate the logistics of collectors or labs to hold on to the authorized second urine specimen while waiting to determine if it is needed.
- A driver can receive a positive hair drug test and a negative urinalysis because the hair test looks back at the previous ninety-day period. The urine test detects drugs in the system for up to a week depending on the drug type.
Moreover, some laboratories don’t test both hair and urine. In these cases, employers have the added inconvenience of shipping samples to two separate facilities for testing. One of which may not even have been necessary but is tested “just in case.”
Let’s run that by one more time for good measure.
Should this HHS proposal get added to the hair testing guidelines, millions of specimens will be collected, shipped, identified, and eventually discarded without serving any purpose other than significantly increasing drug testing costs for companies.
It’s understandable why the trucking industry is having trouble getting behind the HHS regarding this instance.
Is it time to become the squeaky wheel?
Larger employers of the safety-sensitive workforce have been using the hair test to look for drug use for years now. They require potential drivers to submit to both urine and hair tests because they realize the added value the 90-day look back gives them. Using the hair test to search for drugs intensifies the seven-day urine test result. This makes far more sense than using a seven-day urine test result to confirm a 90-day hair test that registers positive for drug use.
The trucking industry has good reason to sound off about this decision. The cost of shipping goods across this country has become astronomical. Adding an unnecessary drug test to the mix is rather bizarre in the eyes of most.
Dishonest employees can’t tamper with hair and mouth swab specimens. The industry needs to consider that. Then notify the DOT that you’d like to go on record requesting that it do away with the urine drug test entirely.
Cheaters never win
Methods used to try and obtain a false negative drug test are:
- Using synthetic urine instead of their own
- Diluting urine by ingesting an excessive amount of liquid before testing
- Using someone else’s urine for the test
While it’s true that due to advancements in the industry, cheating on the urine test has become much more difficult, it’s still a possibility.
Trucking Alliance is on the right track
The Trucking Alliance, an alliance formed to oversee driver safety and security, published a news release in June 2023 outlining the results of an in-house study that determined drug use is on the rise. It also determined that hair testing produced a nine times higher positivity rate than the DOT-required urinalysis.
Moreover, hair testing uncovered more positive drug tests across:
- Every type of illegal drug
- Every age group examined by the Trucking Alliance
- All 50 states in the nation
The news release further noted that research submitted by the University of Central Arkansas “demonstrated that if the national truck driver population submitted to hair drug tests and results were submitted to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse, an additional 276,500 truck drivers would be prohibited from driving.”
Dr. Doug Voss, a researcher from the University of Central Arkansas was quoted as saying, “I don’t see how anyone can reasonably argue with these drug test results, given the large disparity in positivity rates between hair and urine testing for every drug, and a sample of almost 1 million drug tests.” He went on to add, “At some point, it’s like arguing whether the sun will rise tomorrow.”
Let’s keep calling them out
The hair test provides safety-sensitive employers with a 90-day look-back window and is virtually impossible to tamper with. The urine test provides a seven-day detection window. And though it’s getting harder to do, cheaters tamper with the specimen in hopes of causing a false negative result.
Looking at things from the trucking industry’s point of view, the scale seems tipped heavily in favor of using the hair test for DOT drug testing over the urine test.
Let’s bring the information provided by The Trucking Alliance before the HHS and DOT again and again. It concluded that whenever we hit the road, we’re driving alongside thousands of truck drivers who are using illegal drugs. The DOT needs to approve hair testing for safety-sensitive employees immediately. There is enough evidence to prove it is the best choice between the two methods in question.
At the end of the day, we, the people, deserve the best odds to make it home safely to the ones we love. Hair testing truck drivers for drug use will keep them in our favor.
