What This Guide Covers
Who the drug and alcohol testing program applies to, and how the Clearinghouse query requirement connects to it — at the level of administrative and recordkeeping responsibility, not testing science or medical review.
How This Area Fits Your Operation
49 CFR Part 382 applies to every employer of a CDL driver operating a commercial motor vehicle requiring a CDL — including a self-employed owner-operator who drives; there is no exemption for being your own employer. Clearinghouse registration and query obligations attach to the same employers, as a condition of employing or continuing to employ a CDL driver, and run on their own separate timing: a pre-employment query before a new driver is permitted to operate, and an annual query for every currently employed CDL driver thereafter — not just new hires. Random testing rates (the percentage of drivers selected annually for controlled-substance and alcohol testing) are set by DOT and can change from year to year, so a rate that was current last year should not be assumed current this year.
- Source49 CFR 382.103 — Applicability — eCFR· Federal · checked 2026-09-16
Records To Organize
- Program applicability determination for the company
- Written drug and alcohol policy, and proof of driver receipt
- Driver consent records
- Pre-employment query and testing process dates
- Clearinghouse query dates (pre-employment and annual)
- Random testing pool/consortium enrollment records
- Supervisor training records
- SourceClearinghouse — Learn: Employers — FMCSA· Federal · checked 2026-09-16
Dates That May Require Attention
- Annual Clearinghouse query for each currently employed CDL driver
- Pre-employment Clearinghouse query before permitting a new driver to operate
- Random testing selections, on the testing consortium's own cycle
- SourceRandom Testing Rates — DOT Office of Drug & Alcohol Policy and Compliance· Federal · checked 2026-09-16
How DOT Serenity Fits
DOT Serenity organizes the administrative side of your program — policy, consent, enrollment and Clearinghouse query dates — in a schema that structurally has nowhere to put a test result, a substance name, or a Clearinghouse response. That data simply isn't collected here.