: Junta for Progressive Action

The Language of the Road

Are Spanish-speakers discriminated against when they take their driving tests?

by Melissa Bailey - August 19, 2004

Efrain Soto shuffled back from the Department of Motor Vehicles in June holding another tiny, printed card: "Rejection for Poor English." For the third time, Soto, a Venezuela native, had failed his driver's license road test because he couldn't understand enough English to communicate with the examiner.

Soto passed the written DMV driver's test, which is offered in 15 languages, including Spanish, Greek, Polish, Vietnamese, Bosnian and Albanian. The test verifies he understands the rules of the road, including English-word road signs. He also passed the vision test. But when he went to take the road test at the Hamden DMV, he didn't understand what the examiner was saying, except for one command: Go take English lessons.

Soto, a stocky, soft-voiced gentleman in his 50's, says he's lived in the US for 14 years now, but hasn't found time to devote to learning English. He says back in Venezuela, he worked as a professional driver for 20 years; he's confident he can man the wheel just as well as any licensed driver. He says he needs a car for his part-time job as a cosmetics salesman: "I still drive, but always with fear," he says, dreading getting caught behind the wheel without a license.

Soto's escort and English-speaking friend, Antonio Alvarez, says Soto was failed before he even got into the car to begin the test. He says DMV officials recommended they go down to the Bridgeport DMV, where some employees speak Spanish. But Soto and local Latino rights advocates want more.

Kica Matos, who directs the Latino advocacy group Junta for Progressive Action, works to improve Spanish facilities in hospitals, courts and schools. She says she'd like to see the DMV road test, as well as the written test, given in Spanish. "It makes no sense having the two tests be different. [The DMV] needs to figure out some way so that language is not a huge barrier to getting a driver's license." Matos suggests employing bilingual instructors to administer the road tests, or allowing interpreters to sit in the back seat. John Lugo, local Latino rights advocate at Community Mediation, also sees the road test as discriminatory: "The ability to drive a car doesn't have anything to do with the ability to speak the language."

DMV spokesperson Bill Seymour agrees in principle about offering Spanish-speaking road-test instructors: "It's quite understandable to want that service. In an ideal world, the DMV would do that." In an ideal world, he says, the department would also have bilingual examiners on board for all 15 languages in which the written test's offered. But the department is strapped for cash, and he considers Spanish-friendly road tests a "value-added service," not the DMV's obligation.

The DMV does offer phone service and driver's manuals in Spanish. But for the time being, that's as far as the department is willing to go. Seymour rejected the idea of having interpreters in the car during the road test, calling it downright unsafe: "you can't be having cross-conversations going on [during the test]."

Taking the road test requires very little English, Seymour points out. "[Test-takers] don't even need to speak English. They just need to understand what the inspector's saying to them in English." There are bilingual DMV employees in Hamden and Bridgeport, says Seymour, but patrons can't call to schedule a particular examiner. If road-test-takers want a Spanish-speaker, they just have to take their chances. Sending 60 or 70 Spanish-speakers to the one bilingual instructor would "tie up things significantly," Seymour protests. "We wouldn't be able to handle the flow of people through the office."