Given how they collect this data, this "increase" could be "white noise" in the sampling, or variability around the actual "mean", which is incredibly small compared to the number of tests administered. Is it really up 43%, what is the normal variability by year, and how have testing regimes tightened over that time period? Which may be quite a bit from the reading of some of the Federal Register, and watching improved testing and detection regimes in the Olympics?

The lack of any real detailed reporting, or of any "actual" data, or any breakdown of how they got these "numbers", in this "filler" story, doesn't allow us to know much of anything "real" for sure.......does it?

So. like so much else reported by the "media" involving the use of mathematics, this could appear to be just another example of a "bull$#it" "teaser" headline, based on little or no actual statistical change overall in the rate of the use of drugs and alcohol, by safety sensitive RR operating personnel. But, it may also reflect pure variance, improved testing, better screening, or some other factor. We'll simply never know though, from this lousy (lazy?) level of "informative" journalism.

Even more amazing, though, are some of the really mindless responses, to this pretty incomplete and useless story, by some folks. Folks who really should consider moving to live in the kind of "freedom" they are offered by Putin's Russia. That is, if they really do hate America, our American form of freedom and democracy, the choices we may choose to make in that free and open society, as well as most of their fellow Americans, as much as some of these comments might seem to suggest....?

I do have a problem with folks showing up to work screwed up on anything which impairs safe operations. That is about personal responsibility to coworkers, employers, and society. I don't have a problem with folks doing whatever they want to do if it poses no real risk to others. However, when folks make certain commitments in society, they are expected to act in an appropriate and proper manner, and honor those commitments. In safety sensitive transportation positions, this includes refraining from the use of drugs and alcohol, certainly while on duty, or subject to duty. Safety is of the first importance, obedience to the rules is required.......