Is it legal to carry a bottle of alcohol on the truck in a toolbox?

I can*t imagine that they can look in there with out a permission from a judge. But I can imagine that they torture You verbaly and wait for the smallest mistak which You make. I am a european and did not drive a big truck. There I never thought about having beer in my van or buissiness vehicle. When I bought the beer for home. I unloaded this often weeks later when the half was gone.
M.

 

You are not allowed to possess alcohol in a commercial vehicle at anytime without a permit or BOL.

 

You kinda correct. You are not a CMV under off duty or under PC. In the United States.

If your a company driver, your company may have this policy. Please read all post before you argue this. Your blanket statement is miss leading to other drivers, owners.

 

Where?

Look around, everyone keeps silent.

WRONG!!

AN ENFORCEMENT OFFICER DOES NOT NEED A WARRANT OR PERMISSION TO INSPECT A COMMERCIAL VEHICLE.

NO MATTER IF YOU ARE OFF DUTY OR SITTING AT A TRUCK STOP.

IT IS A COMMERCIAL VEHICLE AND SUBJECT TO INSPECTION AT ANY TIME WITHOUT JUSTIFICATION BY AN ENFORCEMENT OFFICER. ​

The precedent for this is clear, the inspection from a DOT enforcement officer is an administrative inspection.

Because it is an administrative inspection, there is a limited scope of what they can and cannot do, and it does not provide unlimited discretion to the officer.

What is OFF limits is the search of personal property and containers (food and so on) without probable cause. This means when an inspection is being done for regulatory enforcement and probable cause for further searching does not exist as the norm, the inspection must be limited to ensuring compliance with the rules and regulations that are established.

This also means that outside of the truck is all fair game, locked or not locked toolboxes have been opened, and some have been pried open by officers.

If the officer suspects there are drugs, that takes this to a different level that I won't address but if there is a suspicion of alcohol on board, they can inspect the personal property WITHOUT permission or a warrant based on probable cause.

But why you ask?

Because alcohol is forbidden by FMCSA regulation and by state law on a commercial vehicle.

And those who want to challenge this, post-court cases that have overturned this, because right now there are none I can find.

Just a few things to add to this, my state does not recognize PC as a means to redefine what a commercial vehicle is, they consider anything used for commercial purposes a commercial vehicle, and those which are marked are considered full-time commercial vehicles. While the state has adopted the FMCSA regulations, it is regulations that they have legislatively adopted, not guidelines or opinions.

Second, a lot of youtube lawyers don't address administrative inspections, they claim that the driver has rights but those are limited rights. Most if not all stuff that is covered is civil, not criminal but there are times when there are criminal issues coming up from things like drugs on board.

Third, while the DOT enforcement officer is limited, one group of law enforcement does not need a warrant or probable cause, that is the border patrol. Thanks to our great minds in Washington, they allowed the border patrol to operate within 100 miles of an international border and they have been used in the past to "help" with an "inspection" or two or to do a search of a car for drugs and contraband. I won't get into the political issues with this crap but they do not have to have a warrant or probable cause to go through everything, and I do mean everything.

 

Go read post #8. The poster copied it from Fmcsa website. It has been debated a number times.

I don't need to prove and show anything. It has already been posted.

 

OK I guess on the alcohol issue but the CMV nope. Nothing makes not makes it a CMV. If this was the case then a lot of lawsuits stemming from accidents with off duty drivers would never happen.

 

Correct. But the alcohol is not under the scope of cmv.

 

More specifically, doing something while off duty is outside the scope of FMCSA. Being a CMV has noting to do with it really.

 

You do a much better job explaining it.

 

What safety director? Its a 2-truck company. LOL.