English-only driver license tests have begun. Some drivers get till March 31 in Spanish
Miami-Dade County, home to one of the nation’s largest foreign-born populations, will soon feel the effects of a new state policy requiring driver’s license tests to be given exclusively in English, eliminating multiple language options, a change that has left many residents navigating a limited transition period for preparation.
People who scheduled appointments for either the written or road test before Feb. 6, the day the new rule took effect, may still take the exam in Spanish, as long as their appointment is scheduled on or before March 31, according to Miami-Dade Tax Collector Dariel Fernández.
Fernández told the Herald that the exception applies only to individuals who booked their appointments prior to the policy’s implementation. His office can verify eligibility through its internal scheduling system, he said, and applicants may also provide confirmation emails or text messages showing when their appointment was made.
Although a press release issued by the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles on Jan. 30 did not acknowledge any gap ahead of the change eliminating multiple language driver’s license exams, Fernández said the transition time is not unique to Miami-Dade County but affects applicants statewide.
At the state Department of Motor Vehicles office in Hialeah Gardens, operated by the Miami-Dade Tax Collector, a steady flow of people were renewing their driver’s licenses on Tuesday. Many Spanish-speaking residents required translation assistance simply to communicate with tax collector staff, whether to determine which protocols applied to them, what documents they needed to prove their legal status to apply for license renewal, or how to schedule an appointment if they did not already have one.
Several bystanders who spoke with the Herald said their concerns were not for themselves but for others like them.
“If I were taking the test now, I couldn’t do it,” said a Cuban man who declined to be identified as he scrolled through his phone searching for a last-minute appointment to renew his driver’s license. Another resident said he had taken the test twice before passing it in Spanish, noting that he would have had no chance if it had been in English. Census data shows that about two-thirds of Miami-Dade households speak Spanish at home.
The new mandatory English-only testing requirement has raised concerns about how immigrants, who make up roughly a quarter of Florida’s population, many of them from Cuba and other Latin American countries, will be able to navigate the system and pass a written exam in English in order to drive legally in the state.
