Friday, January 07, 2011

Safety? O RLY?

no right turn no left turn no u turn no right turn on red

Here's a simple question.

If a person driving on the road sees a road sign and knows what it means (e.g., "No Left Turn"), how does it impact public safety if a) he can't understand the question "What does this sign mean?" if asked in English and/or b) he can't say "I am not allowed to make a left turn" in English?

Seriously.

I got a driver's license good in all of Europe after passing the test in English. I was not required to be able to take the test in Greek, Spanish, German, French, Swedish, Portuguese, Italian, Danish, Monégasque, or anything else. That's because passing the test proved I knew what all the road signs meant. [And yes: it is entirely possible to memorize the shapes of words on signs in a language you can't read.]

So, really: what's the issue here?

(ref)

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Post's permalink - posted at 9:43 AM  

5 Comments:

At 10:12 AM, January 07, 2011 Anonymous Mark had this to say...

The requirement is like a big, international symbolized sign meaning "No Brown People Allowed".

 
At 1:43 PM, January 07, 2011 Blogger Barry Leiba had this to say...

Not related to your question, but: Why did you need to get a European driver's license? I can drive in Europe on my American license.

 
At 1:48 PM, January 07, 2011 Blogger Barry Leiba had this to say...

I think it's amusing that the idiot who said this:
"The average guy on the street hates Spanish, and it is everywhere. To the average guy, that is important.”
...is a state representative from a place called "Mexico".

And as to this:
“If folks are going to come here and work, they need to work toward learning the English language.”
...while that may be so, I think it might help if those folks could drive to their English classes, hm?

Yeh, what Mark said.

 
At 10:24 PM, January 07, 2011 Blogger The Ridger, FCD had this to say...

Because my Tennessee license had expired while I was in Texas in the army.

And obviously the man's not worried about Germans or Norwegians. So yeah; Mark has it nailed.

 
At 10:25 PM, January 07, 2011 Blogger The Ridger, FCD had this to say...

Also, all the actual (gasp!) evidence shows that people who come here DO try to learn English. But they can't do it overnight, and it helps if they have jobs to pay their way while they take ESL courses at night.

 

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