Drug Testing in the U.S. Trucking Industry: Hair vs. Urine Samples and the Implications for Policy and the Industry

Abstract

Virtually everything we own was transported by truck at some point. Around 3.5 million truck drivers haul almost 71% of U.S. freight. To ensure the safety of our roadways, the U.S. government requires all drivers to pass urinalysis drug screens. However, urinalysis drug screens are easily thwarted and some trucking companies use hair drug screens, a more stringent test. This research examines trucking industry data and finds about 300,000 truck drivers would be removed from their positions if forced to pass a hair drug test. Hair testing opponents argue that the test is biased against ethnic minority groups. Comparing urine and hair pass/fail rates for various ethnic groups, our results indicate ethnic groups are significantly different irrespective of testing procedure. Factors other than testing method seem to underlie ethnic group pass/fail rate differences.

A Comparison of Truck Driver Pre-Employment Hair and Urine Drug Test Efficacy

“…Voss and Cangelosi [25] found that 276,500 current drivers would be unable to legally operate a commercial motor vehicle if hair testing was required. Mitra [3] found that poor performance in the controlled substances BASIC increases the likelihood of motor carrier crashes.…”

“…Apart from Voss and Cangelosi [25], Gordon et al [7], and Henriksson [26], the literature on supply chains is largely silent on drug testing in the trucking industry.…”

“…Voss and Cangelosi [25] found that 276,500 U.S. truck drivers would be unable to legally operate a commercial motor vehicle if required to undergo hair testing. To justify generalizing their sample across the U.S. truck driver population, the authors compared the number of drivers in their sample by the state of CDL licensure and the number of truck drivers in each state as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.…”

“…Criminology research finds that hair testing is not biased against ethnic groups [24], but some hair testing critics continue to claim otherwise [27]. Voss and Cangelosi [25] investigated whether hair testing is racially biased using the federally accepted "four-fifths rule". The authors found that the hair testing failure rates were higher than those of urine testing across every examined ethnic group but did not discriminate against any individual group, which supports previous findings that hair testing is racially agnostic [24,28].…”

“…Gordon et al [7] found that hair testing detects more opioids than urine. Voss and Cangelosi [25] documented that hair testing has a 2-3-month look-back period compared to urine testing's 2-3-day look-back period. Hair testing's longer look-back period negates a driver's ability to abstain from drug use for a short time and still pass a urine screen.…”