Alabama tries again...

[Harold F. Schiffman]

The irony of Alabama's regulations is that (when I checked on this last),
ILLITERATE drivers are allowed to take the test, with a helper in the
booth with them to translate the questions! So how these people recognize
signage is presumably by the shape and color of the sign, rather than
what's printed on it.  People who don't know English could rely on the
same characteristics.  I have a set of the booklets put out by Washington
State (for the 9 languages they allow the written test to be taken in) and
they all have pictures of the signs with their English information; people
taking the test in e.g. Vietnamese, have to be able to decipher the
English signs, and in the actual practical test, have to be able to read
them, too.  So McAlpin's argument is rather weak, if not almost vacuous.

I have an unpublished article on this debacle on my website, which I wrote
when the Alabama case went to the Supreme Court:

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/public/alabama.html

HS


Harold F. Schiffman


On Mon, 2 Jan 2006, Trond Trosterud wrote:

>
> Harold F. Schiffman kirjoitti 29. des. 2005 kello 20.21:
>
> >  McAlpin says. He says drivers who can't read road
> > signs in English endanger themselves and other motorists.
>
> The rest of the world uses symbolic road signs, rather than textual
> ones with complicated UNLESS clauses. This could be an idea for USA
> as well, and at the same time solve this problem.
>
> Trond
>
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>