When any public activity is unregulated, there are bound to be abuses. That was the case with commercial motor vehicle drivers for most of America's history. Anyone with a driver's license could operate any sized truck. However, as the roads became more crowded, trucks bigger, and speeds faster, truck car accidents began to mount and it became necessary to have better trained and more safety-minded drivers in our commercial vehicles. That's when the Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1986 was enacted. Commercial motor vehicle drivers then had to have a commercial driver's license (CDL) or they could no longer drive a truck weighing more than 26,000 pounds or carrying 16 passengers or more on the roadways. Testing for this truck drivers license was standardized, requiring both a written and a driving test, and a minimum age of 21.