Guide · Part 382

A drug & alcohol program for a new carrier — the starter, whole

Five of the sixteen automatic-failure lines live in Part 382. A new carrier's drug & alcohol program is not a folder you buy — it is four working parts, and the audit checks that each one actually runs.

Part 1 — the policy (§382.401, §382.601)

A written policy that says what is prohibited (Part 382 Subpart B: alcohol misuse, controlled substances, the refusal rules), what tests happen and when, and what follows a positive or a refusal. Every driver gets the policy materials and the consequences are explained before he drives. Line 1 (§382.115) fails carriers who cannot show a program exists at all.

Part 2 — the pool and the draws (§382.305)

Every covered driver sits in a random testing pool — your own, or a consortium's (§382.403 lets a consortium run it for you). The pool must draw: random selections at the required annual rates, spread through the year, tests actually completed. A pool that exists on an enrollment letter and never drew a name in 12 months is line 5 waiting to be found.

Part 3 — the tests that gate driving

• Pre-employment (§382.301): a negative result in hand before the driver first performs a safety-sensitive function.
• Post-accident, reasonable suspicion, return-to-duty, follow-up (Subpart C and Part 40): each with its own trigger and clock — and its own records.
• The hard lines: never use a driver after a known 0.04 alcohol result (§382.201), a refusal (§382.211), or a known positive outside the return-to-duty process (§382.215). Lines 2, 3, and 4 are single-occurrence failures.

Part 4 — the Clearinghouse (§382.701)

Two queries, both mandatory: a full pre-employment query before a driver first drives for you, and a limited annual query for every driver, every year. The carrier runs them (a consortium can be your designated agent); nobody can run them for you as a background service, because consent and the account are yours. The annual query is one of the five dated items the companion checks per driver.

Records, and where they live

Part 382 records are their own compartment — not the DQ file, not the history file. Positive results and refusals are kept 5 years; collection and negative records on their shorter §382.401 clocks. The vault in New Entrant Audit mirrors the three compartments exactly, and the rehearsal reads lines 1–5 from filed evidence: policy, pool proof, draw records, results, queries.