Could foreign language driving tests be banned?
on October 15th, 2011 at 10:25 pmMinisters are to bar people from taking the driving test in a foreign language after uncovering figures showing about 90,000 tests are taken in other languages every year. There are growing fears that tens of thousands of people may have been granted British driving licences despite not being able to read road signs in English. The rules currently allow the theory test to be sat in 19 foreign languages. People are also permitted to attend the practical test with a translator. In total, 93,407 car driving theory tests were sat in a foreign language last year. There were 18,927 Urdu tests last year, 12,905 in Polish and 298 in Albanian. Last night, Mike Penning, a transport minister, said that the Government was studying how to change the rules to ban the “politically correct” foreign language tests. “I find it incredible that Labour thought it was a good idea to let people without a basic grasp of English loose on our roads,” he said. “Road safety should be our priority, not political correctness. More
