New Visions

“Are you in compliance?”

More and more commercial driving companies are lacking in training when it comes time for their BIT inspections. Most companies do not even realize that if they have employees who supervise others, that they need to provide their supervisors the training to be able to recognize when an employee may be under the influence of alcohol or a controlled substance.

49 CFR 382.603 is the applicable regulation requiring supervisors of commercial motor vehicle drivers who operate vehicles that require a commercial driver license to take 60 minutes of training on the symptoms of alcohol abuse and another 60 minutes of training on the symptoms of controlled substances use (120 minutes in total).

The purpose of this training is to teach supervisors to identify circumstances and indicators that may create reasonable suspicion that a driver is using or under the influence of alcohol or drugs, supporting referral of an employee for testing.

If you operate vehicles that require a CDL on the public roads and you have more than one employee in the company, you are required to get DOT Supervisor Training.

Owner-operators are not subject to DOT supervisor training as long as they do not have other employees working for them. However, you are still required to register with a consortium for DOT drug and alcohol testing.