Implementation Guidelines - Federal Transit Administration - U.S. ...

Testing for drugs and alcohol following
an accident must be performed as soon as
possible following the accident, but should
in no way delay necessary medical attention
for injured people or prohibit a safetysensitive
employee from leaving the scene
of an accident to obtain assistance or
necessary emergency medical care.
However, the safety-sensitive employee
must remain readily available, which means
the transit agency knows the location of the
safety-sensitive employee. Employees that
leave the scene of the accident prior to
submitting to the test without notifying the
employer of his/her location may be deemed
to have refused the test.
If a collision/incident does not meet the
FTA accident definition (§655.4) or if the
definition is met, but the employer
completely discounts the employee’s
performance as a contributing factor in a
non-fatal accident, the decision not to
administer a drug and/or alcohol test must
be documented in detail, including the
decision-making process used to reach the
decision not to test.
In the rare event that an employee is
unable to perform a post-accident test within
the required time period (i.e., 8 hours for
alcohol and 32 hours for drugs) due to
circumstances beyond the employer’s
control, the results of a blood, urine, or
breath alcohol test conducted by a federal,
state, or local official having independent
authority for the test, will be considered to
meet the requirements for a post-accident
test. The test must conform to the
applicable federal, state, or local testing
requirements and must be obtained by the
employer. Circumstances beyond the
employer’s control might include instances
where the employee is incarcerated,
unconscious, or requires medical treatment
that precludes the FTA testing.
Results from tests administered by law
enforcement personnel may not be used if
the employer could have, but did not
perform its own test. This provision does
not permit employers to ignore their
obligation to test, nor does it prohibit
duplicated post-accident testing. In such
cases, it is expected that the employer will
conduct FTA drug and alcohol tests, while
law enforcement officials conduct tests
under their own authority. In instances
where law enforcement test results are
accepted in lieu of FTA test results, the
employer must document the circumstances
which prevented the FTA drug and alcohol
tests from being conducted.
This provision imposes no requirement
on federal, state, or local officials to perform
post-accident testing for FTA covered
employers. Employers should not assume
that law enforcement personnel routinely
perform post-accident testing or that law
enforcement officials will make test results
readily available to them. Most law
enforcement agencies will require a
Chapter 6. Types of Testing 6-11 August 2002