GAO report reveals frightening results at drug collection sites

The Government Accountability Office went undercover to audit collection sites. To conduct the investigation, GAO created two fictitious trucking companies with investigators posing as drivers. 22 of the 24 sites that were unknowingly audited, failed. The results of the undercover investigation are frightening! Is your site next?

Clearly, many of the errors uncovered at collection sites by GAO officers could have been prevented with proper training of collection site staff. It is no longer "good enough" to have one collector train another, and have them train the next person, and so on. Thorough, professional, high-quality training from AlcoPro will help ensure that your collection site personnel are trained to follow proper DOT collection protocol and reduce your liability by minimizing the chance for errors in the collection process.

I am amazed that at 9 out of 10 classes I conduct for Professional Collector training that experienced, long-time collectors are unwittingly making critical errors in the collection process. These errors put your site at risk for liability! Professional Collector training is available at our site or yours. Why take the risk? Check out our Professional Collector training classes today!
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Preview:

What GAO Found

"DOT’s drug testing program is vulnerable to manipulation by drug users, especially given the wide availability of products designed to defeat drug tests. While all urine collection sites followed DOT protocols by asking GAO undercover investigators to provide identification, investigators successfully used bogus driver’s licenses to gain access to all 24 sites—demonstrating that a drug user could send someone to take a drug test in their place using fake identification. In addition, 22 of the 24 selected urine collection sites did not adequately follow the remaining protocols GAO tested. For example, 75 percent of the urine collection sites GAO tested failed to restrict access to items that could be used to adulterate or dilute the specimen, meaning that running water, soap, or air freshener was available in the bathroom during the test."

Conclusion:

"Our work shows that a drug user could easily pass a DOT drug test and continue to work in his or her safety-sensitive commercial transportation job—driving children to school or transporting hazardous materials, for example. To fully address the vulnerabilities we identified, improvements will need to be made in both the design of the entire process and the ability of collection site employees to adhere to current protocols. In ongoing work, expected to be complete in May 2008, GAO is examining options to deal with these and related drug testing issues."

To view the entire report, click here: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08225t.pdf