By Chad Engle, Loss Prevention Manager and Safety Specialist
Good news highway department superintendents and anyone else that oversees conducting drug and alcohol queries on newly hired CDL holders, January 6th, 2023, is the day you’ve been waiting for. Remember back in 2014 when the Department of Transportation proposed the Clearinghouse? It was intended to be a database that contains CDL holders’ drug and alcohol program violation information and would eventually make it easier to hire a new CDL holder by replacing the practice of contacting their previous employers and requesting the information. That day is almost here.
Starting January 6th, 2023, there will be three years of drug and alcohol violation data stored in the Clearinghouse, so prospective employers will no longer have to conduct manual queries with previous employers, they can simply conduct a pre-employment query on the Clearinghouse and comply with § 391.23(e).
Annual query requirements have not changed. Employers of CDL drivers are still required to conduct a query in the Clearinghouse at least once a year for each CDL driver they employ. This requirement applies on a rolling 12-month basis. Employers must obtain a general consent from CDL drivers before conducting limited queries in the Clearinghouse. Sample limited query consent forms are available here: SAMPLE LIMITED CONSENT FORM. If you are unsure whether you are up to date on your annual Clearinghouse queries you can log in and visit your query history page and see if you are due.
Property/Building Inspection Checklist Update
NIRMA has updated our Property/Building Inspection Checklist to include items that will help prevent or reduce the severity of common property damage claims caused by fire, water, wind/hail as well as premises liability issues. The updated items on the checklist were developed with the help of Ken Botes, a consulting engineer with Marsh Advisory, Property Risk Consulting.
Best Safety Practice for Members number 8 is Inspect all workplace sites on a regular basis, I would recommend that your next workplace inspection is done using NIRMA’s new checklist. It will help you protect your county or agency from potential hazards that lead to common property claims.
The checklist can be found on NIRMA’s website here: Property/Building Inspection Checklist
To date NIRMA has provided property inspection training in multiple member counties across the state. I would like to hold at least one more property inspection training session. If you are interested in hosting a training session in the Northeast/Northcentral area, please give me a call at 1.800.642.6671 or contact me via email at chad@nirma.info.
