Driving while Spanish nets trucker $500 fine

[Marc Velasco]

It's either that or a semi-covert way for a state to generate revenues while
targeting a semi-vulnerable population.

As long as speaking English 'well enough' is a judgment call on the part of
the trooper, then the initial charge is pretty easy; as long as truckers/bus
drivers have better, more financially rewarding, things to do, they won't
bother to fight it in an (in this case) out of state court.

This is probably similar to speed traps that happen preferentially vehicles
with out-of-state tags.



On Sat, Jul 19, 2008 at 12:14 AM, Dennis Baron <debaron at illinois.edu> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dennis Baron <debaron at ILLINOIS.EDU>
> Subject:      Driving while Spanish nets trucker $500 fine
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> There's a new post on the Web of Language:
>
> Driving while Spanish nets trucker $500 fine
>
> Manuel Castillo, a California trucker with twenty years experience, =20
> was stopped and ticketed by an Alabama state trooper for failure to =20
> speak English well enough.
>
> Castillo, shown in the AP photo above with his truck, was on his way =20
> from Georgia back to California with a load of onions when he was =20
> stopped in Alabama for a =93routine inspection.=94  Castillo has a =
> Spanish =20
> accent, but he readily answered the trooper=92s questions in English. =20=
>
> However the officer, who could find no other violations to charge =20
> Castillo with, judged the driver=92s English to be insufficient =96 a =20=
>
> violation of federal trucking regulations =96 and wrote Castillo a $500
> =20=
>
> ticket, the maximum fine for this particular offense. Castillo paid =20
> the ticket =96 tickets are part of the cost of doing business for a =20
> trucker =96 and drove on home.
>
> U. S. Department of Transportation regulations require commercial =20
> truck drivers =93to be able to read and speak the English language =20
> sufficiently to=94 speak with the public, understand road signs, respond =
> =20
> to =93official inquiries,=94 and keep records. The states are charged =
> with =20
> enforcing these requirements.
>
> ... [Last year} resolution noted, =93there may be rare circumstances in
> =20=
>
> which an English-only employment rule is a pretext for intentional =20
> national origin discrimination, but in most cases such an employment =20
> rule has little or nothing to do with a person=92s national origin.=94
>
> But it seems that national origin may be just what the Alabama state =20
> trooper and his fellow officers have been targeting. 17% of the =20
> nation=92s truck drivers, and 11% of its bus drivers, are Hispanic, and
> =20=
>
> authorities gave them 25,230 tickets for insufficient English last =20
> year. While government officials insist that they=92re not waging a =20
> campaign against Mexican truck drivers, these numbers suggest a =20
> concerted effort by the Department of Transportation to criminalize =20
> driving while Spanish....
>
> Find out the whole story. Read the entire post on the Web of Language
>
>
> DB
>
> ____________________
> Dennis Baron
> Professor of English and Linguistics
> Department of English
> University of Illinois
> 608 S. Wright St.
> Urbana, IL 61801
>
> office: 217-244-0568
> fax: 217-333-4321
>
> http://illinois.edu/goto/debaron
>
> read the Web of Language:
> http://illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage
>
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