Florida begins offering commercial driving license tests exclusively in English

Beginning Friday, all driver’s tests obtained in Florida will be administered in English without the option of an interpreter or translator, a move that comes months after conservative politicians seized on a tragic truck crash to denounce non-English speaking undocumented immigrants who drive.

The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles said the new rule will apply to all driver’s license classifications, including commercial – which were once offered in Spanish.

Officials claim that the change will make roads safer for Floridians by forcing all drivers to understand road signs in English. However, there is little data to support the claim that non-English speaking drivers make roads less safe.

The decision by the state comes six months after three people were killed when a tractor-trailer, driven by an immigrant who entered the country illegally, attempted to make an illegal U-turn on Florida’s turnpike.

The driver obtained his commercial driving license in California. Florida does not recognize out-of-state driver’s licenses that are issued to people who do not provide proof of lawful residency.

State and federal officials seized on the tragic crash to promote restrictions on undocumented immigrants’ ability to obtain driver’s licenses. Others advocated for rule changes to require English be spoken to take a driver’s test.

Last year, before the Florida tractor-trailer crash, the Trump administration re-established lack of English language proficiency as an out-of-service violation for commercial drivers. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration had scrapped the rule in 2016.

DeSantis called the new change to driver’s tests in Florida “good reform.”

“Need to be able to read the road signs!” Governor Ron DeSantis wrote on X in support of the change.

However, there is little evidence that suggests a lack of English proficiency makes roads more dangerous. A study last year found that truck drivers who violate English language proficiency rules have higher rates of safety violations – but the study could not determine if a driver’s lack of English proficiency was the cause.

Joe Young, a spokesperson for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, told PolitiFact that standard signage and iconography used across the country is “meant to be easily recognizable and understandable for drivers.”

“So it's unlikely that a language barrier would make a big difference in one's understanding of this signage," Young said.