A drug mention in a review is often a missed test

When a previous carrier writes about drugs or alcohol, the next recruiter often hears a failed test. Read the rest of the sentence first. In these write-ups the usual scene is a pre-employment test that never happened: a flight ticket, a confirmed orientation, then never showed. Clearinghouse holds what someone filed. An empty chair before the cup is filled is not a query result.

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.

The share fell. The write-up did not get simpler.

The share of reviews mentioning drugs or alcohol moved from 13.6% in 2018 to 11.2% in 2025. I stop that line at 2025. 2026 is still open. That is 2.4 points down across eight complete years, not a collapse and not a spike.

Do not smooth 2021. That is the high in the completed series, 14.7%, up from 13.0% the year before. Then the share dropped to 11.8% in 2022, 10.9% in 2023, 10.2% in 2024, and 11.2% in 2025. I would not read the decline as the industry getting cleaner. 2021 is the same window where paid-travel-with-no-arrival mentions jumped. People who never arrived to take a test still produce a drug write-up. How these shares are counted is on the methodology page. Compare percentages inside each year, not year totals: the corpus grew, and a bigger pile of reviews is not a finding.

The useful reading is not “drugs went away.” It is “this category peaked when onboarding was desperate, then settled, and it is still in more than one in ten of the reviews carriers bother to leave.”

What sits in the same write-up

The incident language is the clinic and the empty chair, not the roadside. Carriers write about a drug test, a pre-employment test, a test that never happened, a flight ticket, a plane ticket, never showed, stopped answering. That is the scene. Stay away and waste your time are a different register: those are the author’s recommendation to the next recruiter, not a description of what the driver did.

Those two get mixed in the same paragraph all the time. In 39.3% of drugs-or-alcohol reviews the carrier also writes a verdict. That is a fact about how these reviews end, not a fact about the driver. Read whether a test was taken. Do not hire off the temperature of the last sentence.

The companions that matter for hiring are onboarding failures. In 16.0% of drugs-or-alcohol reviews the carrier also mentions paid travel with no arrival. In 14.5% they also mention a no-show. In 12.2% they also mention a driver who went unreachable. Abandoned-truck mentions sit in only 10.3% of this slice. Smaller pieces sit next to aggression or threats (7.5%), theft or money games (7.0%), and a crash or damage (6.4%).

I read that cluster as a week you already paid for, not as a Clearinghouse hit you failed to pull. You buy the ticket. They confirm. The test is scheduled. Monday comes and the chair is empty, or the phone is already dead. Sometimes the last useful line is that the test never happened. That pairing is why this category belongs next to paid travel and a no-show, not in a folder labeled failed test.

Most drugs-or-alcohol reviews do not also mention a no-show. 14.5% is a real overlap, not a majority. Screening for a missed orientation will not catch every drug write-up, and a clean query will not catch the person who never sat down. A write-up with a ticket and a never-showed in the same history is a stop, not a color comment. The application that usually sits in front of that week is in the application before paid travel and a no-show.

Why the packet you already buy stays quiet on the empty chair

A reported positive, a refusal, and some other filings are what Clearinghouse is built to hold. This article is not a manual for those queries. The gap in this corpus is the test that never became a filing.

Yelling at a dispatcher is not a query result. Neither is a candidate who confirmed orientation, took the flight, and vanished before the cup. Previous-employer forms are not much better here. The last carrier may never have onboarded the person. There is no rehire box for someone who never got a truck. The story lives in the write-up the last recruiter left when they were tired of paying for seats and tests that stayed empty.

A clean query on Monday morning does not tell you whether the candidate you just ticketed will walk into the clinic. Those are different claims. Official reports miss a whole class of problem; the version of that argument on a different incident is why official reports miss an abandoned truck. Background checks still matter. They are not the whole file: what truck driving background checks still miss.

I am not going to pretend this is an independent study. CDLScan is the source, and I write from the data they share. Drugs or alcohol are common in what carriers bother to write down, the share has eased since 2018, and a large slice of the write-up is still the appointment you already bought.

What was visible before you bought the seat

The pattern I’d watch for is urgency around the ticket and vagueness around the last start date. They want the flight this week. The last carrier is a short stint or a hole. References are slow, or they skip whether the person ever showed. Official reports are dull, because there is nothing to file yet.

Typical sequence, built from how these reviews cluster, not from one person’s file: you book the flight. They confirm. The pre-employment test is on the calendar. They stop answering the day before. They never show. Sometimes they land, skip the clinic, and the ticket is the last money you can find. None of that is a reason to stop testing. It is a reason to run the name before the card is charged.

People who are choosing between two real seats can usually wait a few days without a ticket. People who need the ticket as the job will push the purchase forward and go quiet on the last employer.

What to do before you spend

Look the name up in what previous carriers already wrote. If you see a flight ticket, a never-showed, and a drug test in the same history, treat the next ticket as a decision, not a courtesy.

Ask when they can start without you buying anything. Ask what the last carrier will say about whether they showed, and whether a test was taken. Then make the call. Do not let the clinic appointment become the background check.

If you already bought the seat, freeze the hotel and the advance until someone has looked. Check the name on CDLScan first. It takes less than a minute, and it is where that pairing actually sits.

The 11.7% share is not a reason to treat every applicant as a failed test. It is a reason to stop reading a clean query as “this person will walk into the clinic on Monday.”

Frequently asked questions

Does 11.7% mean about one in nine drivers has a drug problem?

No. 11.7% is the share of reviews that mention drugs or alcohol, among reviews carriers left on CDLScan. Carriers write after a bad run. It is not a rate for all CDL holders, and it is not a positive-test rate.

Why is 2025 11.2% if the article leads with 11.7%?

11.7% is the share across the whole period. 11.2% is the share inside 2025, the last complete year. They answer different questions. I use the period share when I am describing how common the write-up is, and the yearly series when I am describing whether it moved.

Did this get better?

The share fell from 13.6% in 2018 to 11.2% in 2025, with a peak of 14.7% in 2021. That is a real decline in how often the write-up appears. It is not proof that drug use fell. 2021 sat next to a jump in paid-travel-with-no-arrival mentions. Do not sell the dip as a personality change in the industry.

Will Clearinghouse warn me?

It will warn you about what was filed. A no-show before the test, a ticket you bought, and a phone that died are not the same as a reported positive or a refusal. Pull the query. Then read whether the last start ever happened.

Is this the same problem as an abandoned truck?

Usually not. Only 10.3% of drugs-or-alcohol reviews also mention an abandoned truck. The person who never sits the test and the person who takes a unit and leaves it are mostly different write-ups.

What should I ask before I book the ticket or the clinic?

When they can start if the ticket waits two days, whether the last carrier ever saw them, and whether a test was taken. Then read the write-ups. Do not let the flight become the screen.

Where do I check the name?

On CDLScan, before the card is charged. Previous carriers already wrote this pairing down. You should read it while the money is still yours.