can I lie on a dot physical?

You are NOT just changing which vehicle you can drive when you move from a 4-wheeler to a commercial vehicle. You are putting a special class of super-large or super-heavy vehicle into commercial operation on public roads. You can live in a filthy shack and make chicken salad sandwiches for the rest of your life. You can even give them to anyone you like, But, the day you propose selling those sandwiches to the public you have a long list of equipment and behavior requirements you have to meet or you don't get permission to do it in public. 90% of recent CDL school graduates seem to drive EXACTLY as distracted and dangerously as the average 4-wheeler precisely because they bring their incompetent and bad habits with them and just use them in a much bigger and heavier vehicle while worshipping their smartphone, in the middle lane, or parked at a fuel island.

 

I agree college was an absolute waste of time. I tuned out alot of that brainwashing you guys mentioned years ago. As a psychology major I realized all that a while ago lol, no one needs to tell me how opposite real life is than anything in school. Basically I was able to go for free and have a decent amount in savings so I went. I don't drive distracted. But if a CDL doctor isn't even following the regulations set, then yes, that is grounds for appeal or a 2nd opinion. The doctor can't just make up his own standards, there are specific qualifications and anxiety isn't one of them. I don't know how it used be, but now you need a DOT Physical just to get the permit, meaning I can't even see how well I can handle being behind the wheel of a truck, even with an instructor in a big parking lot of a driving school. For all I know I could sit behind the wheel for the first time and say "these controls are too confusing this isn't for me", but I can't even do that yet when I have to waste time doctor shopping for this physical.

 

There is no established mechanism set up by the FMCSA to "appeal" a bad physical. The FMCSA will allow a person to get a 2nd opinion and that is basically it. A medical Examiner is not free to set standards, but they are free to interpret a standard. This BS is going on with regard to OSA today. Another example is some examiners love to use the Ishihara color plate test to test for the ability to see those 3 colors required. The only problem is there is nothing in the Medical Examiners Handbook that says this. A person is just supposed to be able to see those 3 colors. This is why some vision charts have colors on them. I admit it is frustrating when medical examiners do this.

 

Well since the 1st one essentially do the test beyond the paperwork, nothing may have been entered. Maybe this wouldn't count as a first try. I don't remember if they kept the forms or if they entered anything into a computer system. As far as doctor shopping, what if someone's health improves and they want to keep checking their stats until they are normal. Someone shouldn't be banned for life because of a bad blood pressure reading or past anxiety. If the standards are this strict I have no idea how the current truckers I see on the road got their jobs.

 

1. Feds aren't making rules to make it easy for people to experiment with trucking, but to regulate commercial carriers in public commerce on public roads.
2. The Feds don't care if their rules make it difficult for prospective new drivers to get started.
3. Hospitals and police agencies also don't allow prospective employees to try out the job, likewise trucking doesn't extend an invitation to everyone just to see what happens.
4. NEVER EVER mention doctor shopping if you hope to one day pass a DOT physical. That can be grounds for denying an applicant a DOT medical certificate.
5. Maybe you are right the doctor you saw is misapplying the FMCSA medical standards and it is unfairly preventing you from getting the DOT med cert card. Unless you can bring the pertinent regulations and clear medical or regulatory guidelines to that doctor or another and convince them on the spot you may only have the option of suing the doctor, which may or may not be expensive and fruitless. The Feds are seldom customer-oriented. The feds regulating trucking are anything but driver-oriented. Inside most of the trucking industry few things are treated with less respect than a driver, except maybe a student driver. If the original doctor/doctpr office hasn't formally denied your application, it's probably best to go to another clinic and apply there. Understand EVERYTHING you check "Yes" on the form as being in your medical history you will have to document and the clinic will need to be satisfied your info is complete. The clinic decides if they are satisfied, not you. I would think about the issue involved and analyze what documents and evidence exists in the world that can be found easily by others in medicine or insurance. You know what is the easiest DOT exam decision for a doctor to make, to give a Pass to someone with obvious good health and with a totally blank medical history. Those applicants never have to document anything, just pass the urine/sugar test, eye test, hearing test, vision test, BP, etc.

If the original doctor/office has formally denied your DOT medical exam then you need to put that on future DOT exam applications because the DOT will certainly know about it. When I got out of college the military was still strongly anti-marijuana. Lots of otherwise well-suited applicants were being denied entry to the military for smoking some weed a couple of times. The Senior CPO that was recruiting for Navy Officers explained it to us this way. The Navy, at the time, had a 100% zero-tolerance policy for any applicant admitting on official paperwork they had EVER consumed even the faintest whiff of weed. If an applicant answered the "have you EVER used an illegal drug" question with a YES you gave the Navy no option but to deny you. He asked each of us to declare to him then if we were professional botanists, or actual experts on plants and vegetation. Since none of the 18-23 year olds in the room had a graduate degree in botany, none of us could claim to be expert botanists. The Sr CPO said since the enlistment paperwork was official US Govt paperwork subject to perjury laws, only an expert botanists could be 100% legally and accurately certain that some burning plant material was provably marijuana. To answer "Yes" we would have to lie about our credentials and swear falsely on a govt form. Having some other teen claim some green flecks were weed was putting a lot of faith in some young kid with no botany degree.

I would think long and hard about all of the details about anyone possible bout of anxiety and the documentation easily accessible to some random doctor/clinic doing DOT physicals. After I thought about that seriously, I would think about what might be a more cautious approach to filling out govt forms for an occupation. This job puts you alone A LOT in unpredictable situations and it is often VERY stressful. The vehicle is huge and heavy, you are often in unfamiliar and crowded areas in foul weather and with multiple people demanding almost impossible things from you. It is exactly the opposite of some pleasant long road trip one might have experienced as someone else drove and made decisions. I did it for 28 years and every day and every new customer was sure to provoke certain amounts of stress and worry, or at least it was for me even on my last day before I retired. If you have some real anxiety before getting into trucking, and not just some bystander in a medical/educational environment that is throwing the anxiety label on everyone that isn't their easiest "client", you might not want to be in this industry. I've had lots of jobs. I've never had a job, like trucking, that provides so little info and support to the employee for so many situations that are very common. Only you know you and your situation. I'm not sure I would fight my way into this industry again. I did well by it, but I've got lots of "scars" from it and the longer I did it the less comfortable I because with life outside the truck. That could just be me. You do you.

 

I believe Chiropractors that give DOT medical exams seem to be a bit more friendly to drivers than some MDs. A doctor, nurse, chiropractor giving DOT exams at a truck stop are often a bit more customer friendly. Avoid Concentra clinics at all cost. It may be the biggest national chain of clinics. Their reputation is one of being super strict and sometimes impossible to pass, although I have a good relationship to one particular Concentra clinic in my area that has treated my fairly.

You are welcome to keep pounding your square peg into a round whole for your whole life if that is how you want to do things.

 

Dude, you don't seem to understand the difference between convincing some random stranger on the internet and making your paperwork fall in the proper tray on some bureacrat's desk. Let's say you convince every internet user of your position and why it's the most fair and reasonable position of all positions every held on earth. Congratulations, the doctors/nurses are not listening and only know what their training and habits dictate. The easiest way to get what you want form someone drowning in bureacracy is to make your case exactly like some familiar case they have already approved, not replace your idea of their medical/clinical training with your idea of what their medical/clinical training should be. I'm starting to think you just will never be happy until you get what you want in the most difficult and time consuming possible way, because if it's not diffcult and time-consuming you won't appreciate it. In the Northeast of the USA there are cultures that have trained the other people that they can only be happy during low to mid-level conflict. I once asked a New Yorker at some location if he was doing OK and having a nice day, as a greeting. Like a New Yorker he took my comment as a challenge to his person and demanded to know why WOULDN"T he be OK and what was wrong with my for implying he was ill/having a problem. Luckily, I went to college with tons of Yankees and understand some of hem have the personality of a rat trying to escape a shoebox full of 300 other rats. I didn't take it personally or as a challenge. You can crusade for medical justice or whatever you want, it won't affect the doctor. If you insist on making your life hard you get what you ask for, a hard life.

 

How much work experience do you have in life? Nobody is telling you that you are banned for life. You either pass the exam or you don't. This isn't kindergarten where throwing a fit or knocking or a cup of juice is guaranteed to get you the results you want. Doctor shopping is a specific legal term of art. It's like talking to a cop about manslaughter. Don't throw around the term unless you are 100% sure it's accurate in your situation and you are prepared to live with those consequences. We are asking you to no clinic and ask them "can I do some doctor shopping with you? My last doctor denied me a DOT medical exam." You have already been told you can get a second opinion, at your expense and inconvenience. You would be better off using 2nd opinion instead of doctor shopping. The DOT is primed to see closely spaced medical exams as doctor shopping until proven otherwise so you don't want to say or do anything that looks like doctor shopping. The DOT and FMCSA make their own judgments and they don't need you to agree with their judgments before causing you problems. As I have said before, lost of recent college grads/attendees these days seem to think if they disagree with something in life then they are exempt from all consequences. I don't know why they think this. I don't know how they got this far in life before learning fairness is a lucky coincidence in life, not a minimum requirement. I work woth college students and they resist every idea, every procedure, and every suggestion, often with no reason. The world doesn't need more hard cases, but you can be one if you like. Please recognize being a hard case is a choice, not a genetic requirement.

 

The OP of this thread asked if you can lie on a DOT physical. You can do whatever you want including jumping off a tall building. The consequneces will happen whether you agree or expect them to happen. Choose wisely.