A milder rating does not clear a drug mention

A 3 on a file that still mentions a drug test is not a pass. The star tells you how done the last carrier was. The sentence tells you whether the next desk should still treat this as a screening event. Once you leave the lowest score, drug-or-alcohol mentions get less common. They do not disappear.

Among the reviews carriers left on CDLScan, 11.7% mention drugs or alcohol. That figure describes those reviews, not drivers in general: carriers write after a bad run, so the share tells you what shows up once someone bothers to report it.

Almost all of those write-ups already carry the lowest rating: 94.8% of the whole corpus sits on the floor. Inside that floor, drug-or-alcohol mentions are 12.1%. Above the floor — the thin 5.2% slice with a 2 or better — they fall to 3.8%. That is an 8.3-point drop. The event is still there. It is just a much smaller part of the mix.

I will not build a hiring philosophy on 5.2%. I will use it the way the data allows: as a contrast that shows the lowest rating is not a single story, and a rating above the floor is not a clearance.

The star is heat. The sentence is the event.

Drug test, never showed, flight ticket, pre employment, test never, test results — that is the language of this slice. It is mostly an onboarding event, not a road event. The number next to it tells you how hot the author was.

What rides with drugs or alcohol, across the whole corpus, is the empty-chair cluster. Paid travel with no arrival sits in 16.0% of those reviews. A no-show sits in 14.5%. Going unreachable sits in 12.2%. An abandoned truck sits in only 10.3% — against a 33.5% base rate, far below chance. Aggression sits in 7.5%. Theft sits in 7.0%. A crash or damage sits in 6.4%. Stay away and waste your time sit in 39.3% — that is a verdict, the author’s recommendation to the next desk, not a second incident.

None of that mix is a star. You cannot recover it from a 1 versus a 3. You recover it from the sentence.

The contrast off the floor is useful because it is uneven. Abandoned-truck mentions drop 13.2 points once you leave the floor. Paid travel with no arrival goes from 6.3% on the floor to 1.0% above it. A no-show goes from 5.6% to 1.4%. Going unreachable from 8.3% to 3.4%. Theft from 9.2% to 3.0%. Drugs or alcohol sit in that same walk-away group: 12.1% on the floor, 3.8% above it.

What barely moves is also useful. Late or missed deliveries sit at 9.8% on the floor and 9.6% above it. A crash or damage: 13.8% versus 12.9%. Aggression: 13.9% versus 12.6%. A late load or a dented fender can produce a review that is still angry without being the worst number on the scale. A write-up that mentions a drug test usually cannot.

Verdict language drops hard: 33.4% on the floor, 9.3% above it. That is the carrier deciding the next employer should not waste a call. It is attitude toward the reader, not a fact about the driver.

How we count these shares is on the methodology page. The 5.2% slice is small. Treat every contrast as a difference in mix, not as a portrait of “good” reviews. There are almost no good reviews here.

The drug-or-alcohol line itself ran 13.6% in 2018, 12.1% in 2019, 13.0% in 2020, 14.7% in 2021, 11.8% in 2022, 10.9% in 2023, 10.2% in 2024, and 11.2% in 2025. I stop that line at 2025. 2026 is still open. It did not climb the way abandoned-truck mentions did. It still concentrates on the floor.

The companion essays are drug mentions and no-shows, what a lowest rating actually contains, and paid travel and a drug mention.

Why recruiters misread the star

Because 94.8% of this corpus is already the floor, so a 1 feels like a conclusion. Because a 3 feels like a pass. Because this event can also show up in a program query, so a milder star starts to look like they sorted it.

If you treat every lowest rating as a failed test, you will misread the file. About one in eight of those reviews mention drugs or alcohol. Most of them do not. The same floor also holds walk-offs, late loads, damage, and verdict-only write-ups.

If you treat a 2 or a 3 as a pass, you will also misread the file. Drug-or-alcohol mentions are still in 3.8% of that thin slice. A rating above the floor is not a character reference.

The pattern I’d watch for is the gap between the number and the sentence. Typical sequence, built from the mix, not from one person’s file: you open a profile, see a 3, and skip the rest. The sentence still says drug test, never showed, ticket unused. The rating was never the screen.

This event still belongs with the empty chair, not with the walk-off. Abandoned-truck mentions are only in 10.3% of drug-or-alcohol reviews, far below their 33.5% base. The pairing is in drug mention and a no-show.

What official reports do with the rating

Nothing. PSP, an MVR, and the Clearinghouse do not store carrier star ratings. They store filed crashes, inspections, license actions, program events. A lowest-rating review about a late delivery and a lowest-rating review about a drug test look the same to those systems on the star: they look like nothing.

The program query can speak to the test event. It cannot speak to the star, and it cannot speak to the ticket that never became a start. A clean packet is a finding on the filed items, not on the review. Read the sentence anyway.

I am not going to pretend this is an independent study. CDLScan is the source, and I write from the data they share. Drug-or-alcohol mentions concentrate on the lowest rating, and they do not vanish when the star is milder.

What to do with a rated drug-mention file

Open the write-up. Ask what happened before you ask what it scored.

If the sentence is drug test, never showed, flight ticket, test never — treat it as an onboarding screen even if the star is not the floor. Ask whether a ticket was bought, whether they arrived, and whether a test was even taken. That screen is for the empty chair.

If the sentence is left the truck, you are in a different conversation. That is a walk-off screen. The milder star does not turn a walk-off into a test event, and the floor does not turn a late load into a drug mention.

Do not average the stars and call it a score. 94.8% of this corpus is already the floor. An average here is a measurement of how often carriers bother to write, not of how often drivers fail.

Then look the name up across write-ups, not across ratings. Check it on CDLScan before you spend. It takes less than a minute. The useful part is the sentence, not the number beside it.

Frequently asked questions

Does 3.8% above the floor mean a 3-star review is still a drug event?

No. It means that in the reviews carriers left on CDLScan, drug-or-alcohol mentions are still in 3.8% of the thin slice that is not the lowest rating. Read the sentence. Do not upgrade a complaint because it is not the worst number.

Is the 5.2% slice big enough to quote?

It is big enough to show a contrast. It is not big enough to build a second product on. I am using it as a foil for the floor, not as its own population study.

Why does this mention drop 8.3 points off the floor if the event is the same?

Because the mix changes. Walk-aways and empty chairs concentrate where the carrier reached for the worst score. Late loads and damage barely move. The star is heat. The event is the sentence.

Does 94.8% mean almost every driver is rated a 1?

No. 94.8% is the share of reviews, among those carriers left on CDLScan, that carry the lowest rating. Carriers write after a bad run. It is a fact about the corpus, not a rate for all CDL holders.

Will a clean program query tell me the rating was unfair?

No. Official reports do not store carrier stars. A clean packet means the filed items are clean. It does not classify a ticket that never became a start, and it does not explain a 1 versus a 3.

What should I tell a hiring manager who wants a score?

Give them the event and the year, not an average star. An average in a 94.8% floor is a statistic about complaining, not about the driver pool.

Where do I read the write-ups?

On CDLScan, before you hire. Look at what happened. Use the rating only to know how done the last carrier was.