Off-Duty Randoms and CO Detection: What Driver Petitions Could Change

Off-duty randoms, CO detection: Where two recent driver-led rule petitions might be headed

Two petitions from truck drivers are now listed among the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s active rulemaking petitions: one seeks to prevent carriers from ordering random drug tests when drivers are off duty, while the other asks for carbon monoxide detectors to be installed in truck sleepers.

The petitions do not represent proposed regulations yet. FMCSA told Overdrive that both requests are under official consideration, along with more than 30 other petitions posted on the agency’s petitions website.

Interested parties cannot comment publicly on the requests at this stage, according to an FMCSA representative. The agency reviews each petition and may grant or deny one without public comment. If a petition is granted, FMCSA would begin the rulemaking process, which would include publication of a proposed change and an opportunity for public comments before any final rule is issued.

Driver challenges off-duty random testing

Truck driver Nathan Weidert filed a petition asking FMCSA to establish a rule barring carriers from requiring random drug tests while a driver is off duty.

Weidert’s request followed a dispute with a former employer. He had been working seasonally and was near the end of his contract, with no additional work scheduled. The carrier selected him for a random test after he had moved on to work for another company. When he objected that he was no longer working for the first carrier, the refusal was reported to the federal Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse.

A refusal to take a required DOT drug test carries the same immediate professional consequences as a positive test. The driver is removed from safety-sensitive work and must complete the return-to-duty process, including an evaluation by a substance abuse professional, any required education or treatment, a return-to-duty test and follow-up testing.

Weidert ultimately challenged the Clearinghouse entry through the available review process. In a letter posted to him in late August, FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs said the agency confirmed that Weidert was actively working for another employer when the first carrier ordered the test. FMCSA determined that, under the specific facts of the case, he could not reasonably have submitted to the random test and granted his request to correct the Clearinghouse record.

Although the record was eventually cleared and his commercial driver’s license returned to good standing, Weidert said the process remained burdensome. His petition seeks a broader rule so other drivers do not face similar disputes over whether an off-duty notification can be honored.

Current federal drug-testing rules generally require employees in safety-sensitive positions to remain subject to unannounced drug testing. Employers are expected to notify selected drivers and require them to report to the collection site as soon as possible, typically at the driver’s first available time at a terminal or other appropriate location. Delaying arrival after notification can be treated as a refusal.

The rules also address drivers who are unavailable because they are ill, injured, laid off or on vacation. If a driver’s name is skipped, the employer must document the reason and show that the driver was included in the random pool for that testing cycle. An additional selection can be made during a later cycle to meet the required annual testing rate. In some circumstances, an employer may keep a selection confidential until a driver returns, or select an alternate if the driver will not be available during the testing period.

Those provisions are separate from the broader question raised by Weidert: whether a driver who is technically employed but not working, or is actively performing safety-sensitive work for another carrier, should be ordered to test immediately.

Drug and alcohol rules are not identical

Random alcohol testing has narrower timing requirements than random drug testing. An alcohol test may be conducted only immediately before, during or immediately after a driver performs a safety-sensitive function. A driver cannot be randomly tested for alcohol while on a day off or at an unrelated time before a shift begins.

Drug-testing consequences can nevertheless be severe. A positive test, refusal, tampering, failure to provide a sufficient sample without a valid medical explanation or missing a required test can lead to removal from safety-sensitive duties and a Clearinghouse violation.

After returning to duty, a driver must complete a follow-up testing program. The minimum is six unannounced tests during the first 12 months, although a substance abuse professional can require more testing and extend the program for as long as five years. The follow-up tests are in addition to the driver’s normal participation in the employer’s random pool.

Random selection also does not exempt a driver who was tested recently. A driver selected in one quarter has the same chance of selection in a later quarter as other drivers in the pool.

A separate petition seeks sleeper carbon monoxide detectors

The second driver-led petition was submitted by Todd Daum and asks for a requirement that carbon monoxide detectors be installed in sleeper trucks. The material currently available about the petition does not indicate that FMCSA has proposed specific equipment standards or a compliance timetable.

Like Weidert’s request, Daum’s petition remains under agency consideration. Any detailed requirements would have to be developed through the formal rulemaking process if FMCSA decides to move forward.

Testing rates are increasing for some carriers

The petitions arrive as employers continue to manage federally required random-testing programs. For 2026, FMCSA set minimum random testing rates of 50% for drugs and 10% for alcohol among covered safety-sensitive employees. The percentages represent the minimum share of the workforce that must be tested over the calendar year, not a limit on how often an individual driver may be selected.

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration also raised its minimum random drug-testing rate to 50% beginning Jan. 1, 2026. PHMSA-regulated employers are not required to conduct random alcohol testing under that program.

Small carriers frequently participate in consortium or joint-employer testing pools rather than operating an individual pool. Regardless of how the pool is administered, federal requirements apply, and violations remain associated with the driver through the Clearinghouse. Changing employers does not erase a reported violation because carriers must query the system as part of the hiring process and during required employment checks.

For now, the two petitions remain requests for agency action rather than changes to the rules. FMCSA may deny them, grant them without further action or begin a rulemaking process that could eventually produce proposed regulations and public comment. Until then, carriers and drivers remain subject to the existing requirements governing random testing, refusals and safety-sensitive work.