{"id":146591,"date":"2026-02-06T22:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T22:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/146591\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T22:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T22:18:08","slug":"florida-drivers-license-exams-change-to-english-only","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/146591\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida driver’s license exams change to English only"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014\u00a0The\u00a0Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles<\/a>\u00a0announced last week that driver\u2019s license exams will only be offered in English, ending tests in Spanish, Creole and other languages.<\/p>\n

The change took effect Friday and has sparked mixed reactions in Central Florida.\u00a0Some driving instructors said it could improve safety and standardize testing, but immigrant advocates believe it creates additional barriers and could affect the economy.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (FLHSMV) announced that, beginning\u00a0Friday, all driver’s license knowledge and skills examinations will be administered only in English.
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This change applies to all driver license classifications, including exams administered orally.
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Previously, knowledge exams for most non-commercial driver license classifications were offered in multiple languages, while\u00a0Commercial Learner\u2019s Permit (CLP) and Commercial Driver License (CDL) knowledge exams were only available in English and Spanish.<\/p>\n

Bonnie Frank is a quality assurance specialist with the Florida Safety Council<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0says the change to a single-language test will help keep roads safer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a safety issue. When you’re out there on the roadway, everybody knows you have a lot of traffic, you have a lot of people that aren’t paying attention,\u201d she said. \u201cYou have to be able to read those signs. You have to see the dangers ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Previously, knowledge exams for most non-commercial driver license classifications were offered in multiple languages, such as Spanish, Creole, and Portuguese. Under the updated policy, all driver’s license knowledge and skills testing will be conducted in English and without an interpreter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of signs you can recognize by color, you can recognize by shape, and you can recognize by that it might have a picture on it, but not all signs have pictures on them,\u201d Frank said.<\/p>\n

Immigrant rights advocate Samuel Vilchez Santiago said the policy will hurt communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis rule is absolutely discriminatory against the Hispanic community, against other immigrants who have come to Florida to contribute to our economy and to our society,\u201d Vilchez Santiago said.<\/p>\n

He said he was worried about the negative economic effects. According to 2024 U.S. Census data<\/a>, about 28.7% of the state\u2019s population is Hispanic or Latino.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you know, a lot of the workers who are driving every day to make sure that our state and our economy continue to move are people whose main language is not English,\u201d Vilchez Santiago said.<\/p>\n

At the Truck Driver Institute<\/a> in Sanford, office manager Belinda DeJesus said they have long required English proficiency.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did get an influx of people that had very limited English, almost no English,” she said. “And, you know, we try to counsel them, take some English classes, become proficient in English. Some of them have beginner English. They just need to be a little more versed in the language.”<\/p>\n

Now, when taking commercial learner\u2019s permit and commercial driver’s license knowledge exams, the Spanish option will also be eliminated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s going to be a good thing,”\u00a0DeJesus said. “I think there were already laws in place and regulations in place to have the English proficiency read, write, speak the English language, to be able to communicate with customers, to be able to communicate with other drivers.”<\/p>\n

She said that for driving trucks, it\u2019s crucial that drivers can understand all the rules of the road to ensure safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do real live training. They\u2019re out in the trucks driving on the road. So, if they cannot understand an instruction that an instructor is giving them, then we have a major safety problem,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

According to the notice from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles<\/a>, its testing system has been updated statewide to implement the change.<\/p>\n

According to the American Trucking Associations<\/a>, about 23% of truck drivers in the U.S. are Hispanic or Latino. The group says freight volumes are expected to grow through 2035, as an aging workforce retires, meaning demand for qualified drivers will remain strong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014\u00a0The\u00a0Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles\u00a0announced last week that driver\u2019s license exams will only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3140,274,766,115,1335,139,141,140,99,135,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-146591","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-app-local-state-politics","9":"tag-app-top-stories","10":"tag-massiel-leyva","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-orange-county","13":"tag-orlando","14":"tag-orlando-headlines","15":"tag-orlando-news","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-tampa","18":"tag-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}