Now is a good time to remind your drivers of the consequences of drinking during the holiday season and what effect their actions can have on their CDL or operator’s license and ultimately their employment with your company. Advise your drivers to use caution when indulging in alcoholic beverages and have a designated driver to not only protect their license and job but the motoring public. The FMCSA regulations are specific that a CDL driver while operating any type of motor vehicle is convicted of being under the influence of alcohol as described by state law will be disqualified from operating a commercial motor vehicle for one year. A second conviction would disqualify the driver from operating a commercial motor vehicle for life.

When is Alcohol Use Prohibited for a commercial driver?

Answer: Alcohol is a legal substance; therefore, the rules define specific prohibited alcohol-related conduct. Performance of a safety-sensitive function such as driving is prohibited:

• While using alcohol
• While having a blood alcohol concentration of 0.04 percent or greater as indicated by a breathalyzer test
• Within four hours after using alcohol

In addition, refusing to submit to an alcohol test or consuming alcohol within eight hours after an accident or until tested (for drivers required to be tested) are prohibited.

Do you or your drivers have a CDL or medical card that expired due to the COVID pandemic this year? If so, you only have a few more weeks to renew them.

Although the commercial drivers’ license and medical card waivers that FMCSA issued in the spring were extended once, the agency is not expected to issue a further extension. This means that anyone who is currently driving with a CDL or medical card that expired on or after March 1, 2020 must have those documents renewed by the end of the year.

Any driver found driving with an expired CDL or medical card after the waiver expiration date of December 31, 2020 could be issued a fine and pulled from service.