Training Requirements of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

Many of you have received emails from consulting firms saying that you are required to have your supervisors of CDL drivers trained in Drug and Alcohol Reasonable Suspicion Testing.  E-mails are used as “scare” tactics to get you to purchase their supervisor training courses, webinars, etc.  Well, they are correct that your supervisors are required by Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). But the good news is that the FMCSA makes this training available to you at NO COST!!!

So, let’s look at what the regulations say about the training of your supervisors of CDL drivers. This applies to all motor carriers, both INTRA and INTER state.

Who is subject to the Supervisor Training for Reasonable Suspicion Testing? CFR 382.603

Training for supervisors
Each employer shall ensure that all persons designated to supervise drivers (CDL) receive at least 60 minutes of training on alcohol misuse and receive at least an additional 60 minutes of training on controlled substance use. The training will be used by the supervisors to determine whether reasonable suspicion exists to require a driver to undergo testing under §382.307. The training shall include the physical, behavioral, speech, and performance indicators of probable alcohol misuse and use of controlled substances. Recurrent training for supervisory personnel is not required

So where can I get the training?

The FMCSA has a supervisor training available in video format that can be downloaded from their website for FREE!

Click Here; Then scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the last link. It will take a while to download due to the length of the video, and the quality you choose. You can also check with your D&A Third Party Administrator to see if they provide the training.