January 19, 2011

The new Indiana state legislative session has officially begun, and Evansville, Indiana State Rep. Suzanne Crouch has wasted no time in introducing HB 1255, which would:

• Require that all official state documents and communications are printed in no language other than English.

• Require that driver’s manuals, written exams and the like will be printed in no language other than English.

Even though English has been the official language of Indiana since 1984, the Indiana DMV still allows driver’s license written exams to be taken in languages other than English—including Japanese and Spanish—despite the fact that all road signs are written exclusively in English.

Rep. Crouch’s bill includes exceptions such as languages for communications regarding public health, safety, and promoting tourism.

TAKE ACTION!

The amount of taxpayer dollars spent on multilingual services in Indiana is currently unknown, but that is not uncommon. Federal agencies also do not report their yearly expenditures on multilingual services, so the exact cost to taxpayers at the federal level is also unknown, however, OMB (the Office of Management and Budget) estimates that the total national cost of providing language assistance services to be as high as $1 to $2 billion annually.

Limiting driver’s license tests to the English language is simply in keeping with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regulations, which requires drivers engaged in interstate commerce to “read or speak the English language sufficiently to converse with the general public, to understand highway traffic signs and signals in the English language, to respond to official inquirires and to make entries on reports and records.” What is required of truck drivers to protect public safety in interstate commerce should be required to protect the safety of Indiana drivers as well.

After all, all road signs, including those for school zones and construction zones, are written in English!

TAKE ACTION!

Please begin calling and emailing your state representative NOW!

This bill has already been passed out and approved by the House Government and Regulatory Reform Committee by a vote of 8 to 2, so the next stop is the House floor.

Tell your Rep. that you support HB 1255 and that you want them

to vote YES when it goes to the House floor for an  up-or-down vote!

ProEnglish Backgrounder:  Why Drivers Must Know English

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