I worked for 39 years for an organization that required a C.D.L. be held and we fell under a random testing requirement plus post accident whether we were at fault or not. Random drug testing is b.s., I have personally had my manager pull me into his office and ask me "Can you pass a drug test?" I told him I wasn't 100% sure, he told me to clean up my act and that I was going to be tested in two weeks. I'll admit to having smoked a little herb in my life, I was always real careful and only smoked the first weekend of a vacation then hydrate, hydrate, hydrate the rest of the week. On at least three or four occaisons I got "random tested" when I came back from vacation, I always beat them because I never partook after that first weekend, never in between vacations. One year they "random" tested me twice in one year, the testing gal said "Weren't you just in here?" I told her "They are never going to get it that I'm smarter than they are." Another one of the guys had the same thing happen to him, we used to joke about it. Funny thing is I knew guys that had worked there for 30 years and never had a random drug test...and they weren't choir boys either.
Now that I'm retired I pretty much never smoke anymore, it makes me really stupid and my wife says gives me early onset altzimers...I forget too much stuff like the code to get into my garage without setting off the alarm, stuff like that.
Those NASCAR guys should have to be tested before they set foot on the grounds, this accident is just another reason why...of course I could say the same thing about any major league sport but thats been beat into the ground. A simple P-test and the machines are so fast today the results are nearly immediate, they are so good they can tell if your right or left handed and whether or not you wearing glasses. We used to love to have somebody hit us in the winter because that meant getting pulled out of service until the drug test came back, used to be if you got hit on a Wednesday and had weekends off, it was an automatic five days off. You'd hear it on the radio, one of your buddies involved in a non-chargeable accident, it would be Wednesday and you'd give him b.s. for being a punk and taking five days off...the the time he's kicking back and having a nice paid five dayer. Now the results are really almost immediate, your back to work the next day...even on a Thursday if it happens early enough, back to work on Friday. We had State's Rights concerning taking our bodily fluids against our will, but they hit us with Federal Funding Witholding that would have meant job loss for at least 25% of the workforce, they got their way and originally post accident or reasonable suspicion but eventually random testing came along, they had their foot in the door and all in all its a good thing. We did loose quite a few people over the years, mostly high functioning alcoholics that were lit up when they came to work and never had an accident for years until someone hit them and led to post accident testing where they showed up way over the limit and lost their career jobs of over 25 or 30 years. I still think its a good idea, how else are you going to have any control over the situation. I say test them before the race, put an end to it...if there is an accident, test them again just to prove they didn't take a bong hit in the crapper before going out on the track.
