The federal pilot program built to let 18- to 20-year-old truck drivers cross state lines ended with almost nobody in it: only 76 apprentice drivers were ever enrolled — 2.5 per cent of the 3,000 places Congress allowed — and only 62 motor carriers took part, out of 1,000 permitted. The figures, compiled by the Congressional Research Service from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's own quarterly reports, were reported by CDLLife on Friday, November 6, and they now sit in front of Congress, which must decide whether the under-21 interstate experiment gets a second life or disappears for good.
Source: CDLLife (Nov. 6, 2026)
The program is the Safe Driver Apprenticeship Pilot Program — SDAP. Section 23022 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, passed in 2021, ordered the Secretary of Transportation to create a three-year apprenticeship pilot for commercial drivers. The FMCSA established SDAP on January 14, 2022, and the program concluded on November 7, 2025. It was only the second congressionally directed pilot of its kind for drivers under 21.
Source: Congressional Research Service — Safe Driver Apprenticeship Pilot Program: In Brief (R48244)
Why the program existed at all
Federal rules require a driver to be at least 21 to operate a commercial motor vehicle in interstate commerce — hauling freight across a state line. Many states, however, issue commercial driver's licences to 18- to 20-year-olds for driving inside the state. That gap has long frustrated the trucking industry, which argues that young people who want to drive trucks leave school, take other jobs while they wait to turn 21, and never come back. SDAP was the bridge Congress built across that gap: a young CDL holder could drive interstate freight, but only inside a strict training structure, under supervision, for an approved carrier.
How an apprenticeship was supposed to work
An apprentice had to complete two probationary periods under an experienced driver — defined as at least 26 years old, holding a valid CDL for at least two years. The first probationary period was 120 hours of on-duty time, at least 80 of them driving; the second was 280 hours. Only after both could the apprentice drive interstate unaccompanied. Carriers had to be approved by the FMCSA, register as apprenticeship sponsors with the U.S. Department of Labor, and file monthly reports on every apprentice — duty hours, miles driven, incidents and crashes — so the agency could pull anyone who looked like a risk.
The numbers fell off a cliff
Interest was modest at the start and then collapsed. In 2023, the program's first full year, 229 applications came in across all three roles — 112 from motor carriers, 81 from experienced drivers and 36 from apprentice drivers. In 2024 the total fell to 184. By the end of the second quarter of 2025, only 31 applications had arrived all year — 12 carriers, 7 experienced drivers and 12 apprentices. The 76 apprentices approved between January and June 2025 were the last intake the program ever recorded, and of those 76, only 42 completed all the required probationary periods.
Congress wrote a homework deadline into the law: the FMCSA's final report on SDAP was due on March 7, 2026, four months after the pilot ended. As of September 2026, the Congressional Research Service notes, the FMCSA had still not published it. Lawmakers are being asked to judge the program's safety record without the agency's own final account of it.
Two industries, two verdicts
The American Trucking Associations has petitioned the FMCSA to extend the program for five years, arguing from the quarterly data that participants drove millions of miles with positive safety outcomes; the agency opened the petition to public comment and has made no final decision. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association reads the same numbers the opposite way — it calls SDAP a failed experiment, noting that only about 80 individuals ever applied to be apprentices out of 3,000 places, and says the agency should not act until the overdue report to Congress is delivered.
Why this matters to Punjabi trucking families
Trucking is one of the largest employers of Punjabi immigrants in North America, and the 18-to-21 gap is a kitchen-table issue in those families: a son or daughter can earn a CDL at 18 and haul inside California, Texas or another home state, but the better-paying interstate lanes — the long-haul work the industry is built on — stay closed until the 21st birthday. SDAP was the only legal bridge across that line. Its collapse means the bridge is gone unless Congress rebuilds it, and the families who planned around it are back to waiting.
What happens next
The Congressional Research Service lays out three options: Congress could make a permanent apprenticeship program, order a new pilot built on the lessons of this one, or let the idea die — in which case, as the report puts it, under-21 drivers simply cannot take part in interstate commerce under existing rules. An extension has already been written into the Build America 250 Act (H.R. 8870), the surface-transportation bill the House ordered reported in May 2026, and the ATA's five-year extension petition remains pending at the FMCSA. Awaaz Punjab will report the decision when either track moves.