Conduct & Company Policy · Driver Training VideoSubstance Policy & Prescriptions

Start with alcohol

Federal law prohibits any measurable alcohol concentration of 0.04 or greater while performing a safety-sensitive function like driving. Between 0.02 and 0.04, you're pulled off duty for 24 hours — no exceptions, no argument. Below 0.02, no action is taken on that number alone.

Drug testing runs on five categories: marijuana, cocaine, PCP, opioids — including prescription painkillers like oxycodone and hydrocodone — and amphetamines.

Random testing isn't rare

Right now the industry pulls fifty percent of drivers for drug tests and ten percent for alcohol every year, spread out so nobody knows when their number comes up.

Marijuana is where drivers get tripped up. It doesn't matter what your state legalized. Federal rules govern this seat, and marijuana stays a fully prohibited substance under those rules — recreational or medical, doesn't matter.

Prescriptions are the other trap

A legal prescription does not automatically clear you to drive.

Your company standard: disclose every medication to your medical examiner before your physical, never drive on anything that carries a driving warning without written medical clearance, and never touch a federally prohibited substance, period — no state law changes that for this seat.

One more thing to know: every result — positive, refusal, or return-to-duty — goes into the federal Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse. Employers check it before they hire you, and once a year after. It follows you to every carrier you ever work for.