• On the winter solstice, 21 December, the United States
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Department of Transportation will introduce mandatory drug testing for inter-state truck drivers. Spaced-out truckers, it seems, have become a big problem across the pond, and the feds have decided that any company with 50 or more inter-state drivers is going to have to check that they are not on any illegal substances before they hit the road.
Just wait until that most intellectual of organs, Sunday Sport, catches up with this one . . . acid house trucker meets alien from Mars at the county line. . . my life as a purple sausage on Route 66. . . sex-starved junkies gun-running Rottweiler guard-dogs through Idaho . . twenty things you didn't know about crack in the fast lane — the sort of headlines our backroom boys would love to write.
The only drawback is that American haulage companies have been thrown into confusion by the forthcoming law. London lorry ban-style challenges to the new rules mean that no-one knows for sure if they should randomly drug-test their drivers; who should check the results, and what happens after reportable accidents. No doubt the cocaine in the executive washroom has not helped.
The Hawk has a few spare weeks at the turn of the year, so if anyone with a bad habit needs to go cold turkey, I'm your bird. Could well be a short day's journey into night.