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The flip side of an old adage often heard on the streets of Washington must be, “If it is broken, fix it.” So, when it comes to the current system of issuing and monitoring commercial driver licenses, we need the Maytag repair guy, and now.

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The testimony last week of Illinois Gov. George H. Ryan should concern us all. The CDL scandal in his state – where some drivers were buying their licenses from corrupt state licensing officials – was “an outrage,” he said.

But, the governor added, before anyone gets too smug, “I don’t think there’s any question it is happening in other places.”

For instance, the governor pointed to the state of Florida, which is also immersed in a similar scandal. “Florida’s problem may be worse than ours,” Ryan said.

The fear is that both states’ bribery problems may well have infected the CDL program on a national scope. Many of the drivers who improperly obtained their licenses apparently turned around and swapped their ill-gotten Florida and Illinois CDLs for home-state versions, as permitted under existing law.

The scandals underline some of the problems with the CDL system and show how a few bad, and aggressive, apples can spoil the entire basket.

We need to improve the CDL program before everyone loses confidence in it. The basics of the program are sound, and it clearly has helped improve the caliber of drivers available to the industry. But we need to make sure that every state conscientiously and consistently administers the required knowledge and skills tests. These exams are not supposed to be easy to pass unless you are well-trained or experienced in truck driving.

To shut down the bad apples already on the roads, many states need to improve the quality of information in their driving records of all CDL-holders — some states still “mask” certain moving violations. And they need to respond quickly to request for that information from other states. This will help hold down the number of multiple licenses in the hands of one driver.

Interestingly, Gov. Ryan said the federal government has to share the blame for his state’s CDL scandal, because its actions made CDLs valuable. In other words, if the government sets standards there will always be some people who would rather find a way to get around them.

That shows us just how important, an effective CDL program is for the nation.