Businesses that carry passengers may run a procedure to check whether drivers have been drinking before they depart. However, the fact that a company name includes "transport" or "passenger" does not mean the same legal procedure applies to every transport service and every employee. You need to look together at the type of license or registration the operator holds, the services it actually runs, and the duties of the people who drive its vehicles.
The Rules on Alcohol Checks and Records for Passenger Transport Workers set out the definitions of transport operators and transport workers, breath tests, and the retention of check logs. A breath test is a procedure in which the driver blows into a device before driving to check for alcohol. Sorting out first who is legally covered helps you avoid wrongly widening or narrowing the scope by copying another company's testing methods or document forms as they are.
Separate transport services using license and registration documents
The starting point for this check is not a company profile or organization chart, but the license and registration documents for the business currently in operation. If one legal entity provides several transport services, write down separately which license or registration each service operates under. Also note which service each vehicle is actually assigned to and which entity is responsible for that operation.
Guidance received in the past or internal review documents may have assumed the business structure of that time. If you have opened a new route, added a reservation-based service, or changed the operating entity, it is better to compare the license and registration documents with actual operations again rather than applying the old conclusion to current work as is. The conclusion you need is not "are we a passenger transport company?" but "which operations under which business type are we reviewing?"
Link driving duties to people
Next, classify people based on actual driving duties, not the HR roster. An employee who adjusts dispatch, an employee in charge of vehicle maintenance, and a manager who does only office work perform different actions from someone who drives a vehicle carrying passengers, even within the same company. Whether someone is a transport worker under the rules needs to be confirmed by comparing the rules' definition with their actual driving duties.
Making a list that links each driver to their affiliation, the service they operate, and whether they actually drive vehicles helps narrow the scope of review. This list is material for reviewing who is subject to pre-departure alcohol checks, and its purpose differs from a roster for comprehensively managing all employees' alcohol status. This is also why people on leave and managers who do not drive are not grouped in the same category as drivers.
| What to compare | Records to gather | Why these records are needed |
|---|---|---|
| Business type | License and registration documents and actual transport services | To decide which operations to base the review on |
| Vehicle drivers | Dispatch details, driving duties, transport worker records | To see whether the person actually performs driving duties |
| Pre-departure procedure | Test location, how results are recorded, logs currently kept | To align the necessary flow if they are covered |
Compare the rules' definitions and procedures in one pass
After sorting out the business and driving duties, check how the rules define transport operators and transport workers. Then read the provisions on breath tests and retention of check logs, and mark which items in the lists you made by business and by driver they connect to. The fact that you are using breathalyzers, or that another transport company uses a log in the same format, does not by itself settle who is covered.
It helps here to write down separately "the scope the company tests for safety management purposes" and "the scope reviewed under the rules." Running tests voluntarily for a wider group is possible, but that scope does not automatically become the same as the legal scope. If the two are mixed, it becomes hard to distinguish the basis when explaining to employees why they are tested or when writing and keeping logs.
For borderline services, narrow the facts before asking
As a hypothetical example, suppose a legal entity starts a new reservation-based transport service in addition to its existing passenger transport. The pre-departure alcohol check procedure has been applied to the existing drivers, but it has not been settled whether people driving vehicles for the new service fall within the same scope. The facts to observe here are that drivers belonging to the same entity drive the vehicles, and that it has not been confirmed whether the new service's license or registration type is the same as the existing business.
Do not interpret these facts alone as including or excluding the new service. A possible action is to set side by side the new service's license and registration documents, the duties assigned to its drivers, and the business type assumed by existing guidance. Based on that material, you can make the question to the body that manages the license or registration specific, for example: "Is a person performing this driving duty under this business type subject to checks under the rules?"
The completion criterion in this case is not having bought testing equipment or written an internal notice. It is a state in which you have secured the basis for deciding whether the new service and its driving duties fall within the scope, and only if they do, have set up the testing and log procedures to fit that scope. For services where you have not yet received an answer, rather than settling them as excluded, it is easier to respond to later changes if you mark which documents and duties need further confirmation.
Once the scope is settled, align the testing and log flow
After the legal scope is settled, review the procedure in line with the actual order of operations. Link where drivers take the breath test before departure, who checks the results, who writes the driver, test time, and checker in the check log, and where the completed log is kept. Rather than just stating "record it," deciding who writes it and which document it is kept in lets you find points where things get missed.
How equipment performance or test results are transferred to the log can also be reviewed at this stage. However, having the equipment ready does not replace the judgment that the business and its driving duties are legally covered. Conversely, if you settle the scope first, you can review the operating approach needed to fit the test locations, the number of drivers, and the log-writing flow.
If the business type or operating method changes, go back to the original license and registration documents and the driving duty list and compare them again. The order of checks is: classify the business type, link actual driving duties, compare the rules' definitions and procedures, confirm the facts of borderline services, and run testing and logs to fit the scope. This order avoids both the assumption "we are a passenger transport operator, so of course we are covered" and the assumption "we have not been testing so far, so we are not covered."
※ This article is general information, not legal advice on any individual case. Please consult a lawyer or other professional about specific matters, and because laws can be amended, check the latest text at the Korea Law Information Center.
