Issues
Official English
Bilingual Education
English on the Job
Citizenship and
   Immigration
Bilingual Ballots
Puerto Rican
    Statehood
Ending E.O. 13166,
   the "Multilingual
   Mandate"

Resources
Model official
   English statute
Backgrounders
Pending legislation
Census 2000 data
Myths & Facts
Poll Data

Contact us:
1601 N. Kent St.
Suite 1100
Arlington, VA
22209
ph: (703)816-8821

ProEnglish Slams Virginia House Panel for Rejecting Bill Requiring Driver's Exams
in English

Arlington, Va. - ProEnglish Executive Director K.C. McAlpin criticized the vote this morning by a Virginia State House Transportation Subcommittee to table a bill requiring driver's license exams to be given in English, characterizing the panel's action as an "abdication of the committee's responsibility to insure public safety."

The bill, H.B. 287, sponsored by Del. Danny Marshall (R-Danville) was tabled in a unanimous vote of the Virginia House Transportation Subcommittee No. 1 chaired by Del. John J. Welch (R-Virginia Beach), despite Marshall's testimony citing accidents and near accidents in which a driver's inability to read and understand English had been a contributing factor. Virginia's Department of Motor Vehicles currently provides written driver's license exams in both English and Spanish, and allows applicants who speak other languages to use interpreters.

"Giving driver's license exams in Spanish and allowing other applicants to use interpreters threatens the safety of every Virginian," said McAlpin. "It is common sense that drivers should be able to read ordinary traffic signs and communicate with police and emergency workers in the event of an accident. Drivers who lack basic conversational fluency in English can do neither. The legislators who voted to table this bill should be held accountable for highway deaths and injuries that result."

"Allowing the use of interpreters also opens the door to cheating," McAlpin added. "In recent years major fraud rings involving the use of interpreters at departments of motor vehicles have been discovered in a number of states, including Colorado, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania."

McAlpin noted that English is the official language of the state and that Virginia law requires notary publics to "be able to read and write the English language." The state can also refuse to grant alcoholic beverage licenses to applicants who are "unable to speak, understand, read and write the English language in a reasonably satisfactory manner."

"If knowledge of English is required for notary publics and business owners who sell alcohol, it should also be required for the privilege of driving on Virginia's roads and highways," said McAlpin.

ProEnglish is a national organization based in Arlington, Va., that advocates for official English.