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Trucker ticketed $500 for poor English

Laughing Man

1337 |-|4(|<3R
North Charleston may soon post street signs in Spanish.
City Council member Rhonda Jerome is asking the Department of Transportation to post them at crosswalks. She says they're needed because people are frequently hit, even killed, on Ashley Phosphate Rd. But not everyone agrees.
'This push button, a lot of the Hispanic population doesn't know they have to press it in order to make the sign change so they can cross the street safely," Jerome said

An example of the saftey concerns I had cited earlier when those in the US cannot read the signs in English
 

Laughing Man

1337 |-|4(|<3R
Currently, we DON'T have an official language, we merely have a common one. NONE of these issues have reared their ugly heads so far, and pandering to your XENOGLOSSOPHOBIA will not make them appear!

Pete you don’t even know me, I certainly do not have Xenoglossophobia, as a matter of fact I am trying to learn Japanese now(for a trip I intend to take there, I feel it would be pretty rude of me to walk around expecting people to cater to me because I don’t speak Japanese). So please try to be less judgmental.
 

Fluffy

A fool
There are differences between a carrot, Fido the dog and Bob the person which are sufficiently significant when it comes to deciding who should be allowed to drive on the road. There is no "licences for vegetables" movement because everybody is able to recognise that these differences are non-arbitrary and thus driving tests have not been constructed specifically to crush and enslave those organisms that do not have brains. Similarly, we realise that the only organisms that need protection from harm are those which can feel pain and this results in laws that prevent us from being cruel to humans and animals but not footballs and bricks.

Unfortunately, humans have a very strong tendency to arbitrarily restrict other humans. We call this tendency bigotry. This tendency is so widespread and the effects of it have been so dire that our response to it has been overzealous. If one human tries to restrict another, we label this wrong and 9 times out of 10 we will be right. This is not a perfect solution but it works most of the time and so we keep on doing it. What of the few times when it doesn't work?

Should we remove age restrictions on driving, guns, sex and alcohol?
Should we allow people to operate dangerous equipment regardless of whether they have relevant disabilities?

All aspects of a person can impact on specific tasks even if they are irrelevant to the vast majority of things in life. Skin colour is perhaps one of the most irrelevant aspects but it would still be irrational to prevent tv companies from hiring actors who look like they could be related. Similarly we don't cry bigotry when a company hires a female cleaner to clean the female toilets. Sometimes, aspects of people which we associate strongly with a form of bigotry (in these cases racism and sexism) can be relevant to a valid judgement.

Language is quite an obvious candidate for this. There are plenty of times when an inability to communicate impacts on safety. If an inability to communicate with a police officer when operating in a commercial capacity on the road did this then it would be completely fair to prevent anybody who could not speak the lingua franca (in this case English) from acquiring a commercial driving liscence. Notice I said "lingua franca" which means "a common language used by speakers of different languages". Not official language.

Having said that, I don't understand why this would be the case. Can you get a driving liscence if you don't speak English? Yes. Does that impact on your safety or the safety of others? Assumedly no or they should not be handing out such liscences. Why, then, would a commercial driving liscence be any different?
 

Scuba Pete

Le plongeur avec attitude...
So please try to be less judgmental.
Boy, would that be nice! It would sure make conversations with him a whole lot easier, more productive and more fun. I won't hold my breath, though.
I feel judged. Sorry if the truth HURTS. Sometimes it has to in order to make any headway. If you don't like my opinions, and they are often quite strong when it comes to phobias and bias, not to mention out and out bigotry, then put me on ignore! I do understand that you guys aren't nearly as sensitive to this as I am.

Now, PLEASE take some of your own advice, and stop judging people who don't speak English. Who are YOU to say that they constitute a danger? Who are you to say that they are being RUDE? Come down to Miami and start spewing some of this nonsense and see just how "judgmental" they can be about it. We are a collection of States and each state is a collection of communities. We don't all have to be the same! We don't all have to speak YOUR language because that would be convenient for you.

These communities are solving their language problems nicely WITHOUT having English as the "official" language. They don't need YOU to complicate things with a law that would compromise a lot of rights as well as consume more of their resources with trying to implement it.
 

Magic Man

Reaper of Conversation
Having said that, I don't understand why this would be the case. Can you get a driving liscence if you don't speak English? Yes. Does that impact on your safety or the safety of others? Assumedly no or they should not be handing out such liscences. Why, then, would a commercial driving liscence be any different?

I agreed with everything you said up until here. The point is not that it affects their driving. You could be a perfectly safe driver without knowing English. The problem is that, when you get pulled over, the officer needs to be able to communicate with you. This is not a situation where it's easy to get an interpreter, but it is a situation where clear communication is essential. Part of the privilege of driving includes dealing with police officers. If you can't perform that function satisfactorily, then it should negatively affect your chances of having that privilege.
 

Laughing Man

1337 |-|4(|<3R
I feel judged. Sorry if the truth HURTS. Sometimes it has to in order to make any headway. If you don't like my opinions, and they are often quite strong when it comes to phobias and bias, not to mention out and out bigotry, then put me on ignore! I do understand that you guys aren't nearly as sensitive to this as I am.

Now, PLEASE take some of your own advice, and stop judging people who don't speak English. Who are YOU to say that they constitute a danger? Who are you to say that they are being RUDE? Come down to Miami and start spewing some of this nonsense and see just how "judgmental" they can be about it. We are a collection of States and each state is a collection of communities. We don't all have to be the same! We don't all have to speak YOUR language because that would be convenient for you.

These communities are solving their language problems nicely WITHOUT having English as the "official" language. They don't need YOU to complicate things with a law that would compromise a lot of rights as well as consume more of their resources with trying to implement it.

xenoglossophobia
noun
  1. A fear of foreign languages.
Well since I am learning Japanese I guess I am exempt from this label.

and as for judging what constitues a danger well here is an example of what I am talking about
Non-English speaking trucker charged in vehicular homicide
A commercial truck driver whose English was so bad that he could not communicate with police ran a stop sign in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, this past July crashing into North Carolina family's car. Killed in the crash were Kenneth and Janet Kerr, both age 35, their two daughters ages 16 and 13, and their 4 year-old son.
Authorities investigating the tragic accident were mystified how the Bosnian-born trucker, Ejub Grcic, 54, was able to obtain a valid Utah commercial driver's license. Grcic is part owner of EH Transport, a one-truck business in West Valley, Utah. Brandon Olsen, head of training at Mountain West Commercial Driver's License School in Salt Lake City, Utah, was equally perplexed. According to Olsen, "You have to have some ability to speak English. . . To be a trucker, you have to. It's the law."
But according to news reports Grcic, who speaks Croatian, needed an interpreter to communicate with police called to the scene of the accident. He also needed an interpreter at his subsequent court arraignment. Among other things authorities wanted to know why Grcic's rig was traveling on a rural road just prior to the accident. Police reports said the 40-ton tractor-trailer was far too heavy for the road, which had posted signs proclaiming a 10-ton weight limit.
According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's regulations for state driver qualifications, Section 391.11, commercial driver's license holders are supposed to be able to "read and speak the English language sufficiently to converse with the general public, to understand highway traffic signs and signals in English, to respond to official inquiries and to make entries on reports and records."
"It's terrible events like the death of an entire family in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania that makes us angry that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration decided to withdraw its proposed national English standard for commercial truck drivers," said ProEnglish executive director KC McAlpin (see related article). "If the drivers of 80,000 pound rigs don't know English, the lives of every member of the public who use U.S. roads and highways are in danger."
 

Mister_T

Forum Relic
Premium Member
***MOD POST***

Folks, let's cool it with the personal remarks and get back on topic please.

Thank you.
 

Magic Man

Reaper of Conversation
I feel judged. Sorry if the truth HURTS. Sometimes it has to in order to make any headway. If you don't like my opinions, and they are often quite strong when it comes to phobias and bias, not to mention out and out bigotry, then put me on ignore! I do understand that you guys aren't nearly as sensitive to this as I am.

The problem is not that you have strong opinions. The problem is that you make false claims. Nothing we've said has anything to do with phobias or biases. You are extracting things that aren't there. If we were being bigotted or phobic, then your opinions on those topics would be relevant. As we are not, your talk of such things is unwarranted.

Now, PLEASE take some of your own advice, and stop judging people who don't speak English. Who are YOU to say that they constitute a danger? Who are you to say that they are being RUDE? Come down to Miami and start spewing some of this nonsense and see just how "judgmental" they can be about it. We are a collection of States and each state is a collection of communities. We don't all have to be the same! We don't all have to speak YOUR language because that would be convenient for you.

These communities are solving their language problems nicely WITHOUT having English as the "official" language. They don't need YOU to complicate things with a law that would compromise a lot of rights as well as consume more of their resources with trying to implement it.

I'm not judging people. You're still confusing the issue. We don't have to be the same, and I don't want us to be the same. What I want is for us to have something in common, something that doesn't affect everything else. You're taking things too far. No two people are the same, and they shouldn't be. But we need a way to communicate with each other, hence language. You and I are very different even though we speak the same language. Us speaking the same language doesn't make us the same in any other way, just as I'm not trying to change the way these people are in any way. They can still be completely different from me.
 

Scuba Pete

Le plongeur avec attitude...
Dude... do you KNOW who "ProEnglish" is? They are xenoglossophobia central!

ProEnglish: The English Language Advocates

So, you are contending that only non-English speaking people run Stop Signs? I wonder if the FACTS would support this.

I am certain that you would find that the VAST majority of Stop Signs run in the US were done by people speaking English: ON THEIR STOOPID CELL PHONES. If you want to make our roads safer, don't worry about someone who could PASS their test. Obviously, they spoke English (or wrote it) just fine to pass the test! Maybe we should have them write an essay on the works of Newt Gingrich, who not so surprisingly, has JOINED the ProEnglish brigade! Maybe we should coin a new word here: English-Nazis. Works for me.

No, if you want safer roads, BAN cell phones. 'nuff said.
 
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Magic Man

Reaper of Conversation
Dude... do you KNOW who "ProEnglish" is? They are xenoglossophobia central!

ProEnglish: The English Language Advocates

So, you are contending that only non-English speaking people run Stop Signs? I wonder if the FACTS would support this.

I am certain that you would find that the VAST majority of Stop Signs run in the US were done by people speaking English: ON THEIR STOOPID CELL PHONES. If you want to make our roads safer, don't worry about someone who could PASS their test. Obviously, they spoke English (or wrote it) just fine to pass the test! Maybe we should have them write an essay on the works of Newt Gingrich, who not so surprisingly, has JOINED the ProEnglish brigade! Maybe we should coin a new word here: English-Nazis. Works for me.

No, if you want safer roads, BAN cell phones. 'nuff said.

I don't care who ProEnglish is or what they want. It doesn't matter to me. I am not a part of them, and you are not arguing with them. You are arguing with me. I have nothing to do with them. You might want to answer my arguments, rather than make up other ones that you can easily shoot down.

Obviously, there are a lot of things that could help make our roads safer. I have no problem with doing some other things, too. That's completely irrelevant to this discussion, though. We agree that other things should happen to make our roads safer, great. Now, let's get back to the topic at hand.

I would like to see you point out where anyone said that only non-English speakers run stop signs or commit other traffic offenses. All we said was that the language barrier does cause these things sometimes. Obviously, English speakers also commit these offenses, too, but, again, it is irrelevant to this discussion.

It's also very poor form to associate anyone who thinks English should be the official language with a term like "English-Nazis". It's false, and unbefitting of polite debate.

And, you can stop with the xenoglossophobia comments. It's been proven that nothing we have said can be construed as that by a reasonable person. Once that happened, you found some other people who might or might not fit that description better, so that you could continue to use the word. Just stop.
 

Fluffy

A fool
mball said:
I agreed with everything you said up until here. The point is not that it affects their driving. You could be a perfectly safe driver without knowing English. The problem is that, when you get pulled over, the officer needs to be able to communicate with you. This is not a situation where it's easy to get an interpreter, but it is a situation where clear communication is essential. Part of the privilege of driving includes dealing with police officers. If you can't perform that function satisfactorily, then it should negatively affect your chances of having that privilege.

And yet the law does not deem this to be a danger because you cannot get a fine if you don't speak English and are not a commercial driver.

My question is why a commercial driver has greater need to communicate with the police than normal drivers? If there is no difference then a person should not be fined in one place and not in the other.

I think we should also be aware of the full impact of requiring every person on the road to speak English. You will be stripping countless people who are hearing or speech impaired of their licences if you do that.
 
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A

angellous_evangellous

Guest
***MOD ADVISORY***

Please stay on topic and refrain from personal comments. Some posts of a personal nature have been removed and are pending moderation.

The thread will remain open for the time being if everyone can remain civil...

Thanks,
A_E
 

Magic Man

Reaper of Conversation
And yet the law does not deem this to be a danger because you cannot get a fine if you don't speak English and are not a commercial driver.

My question is why a commercial driver has greater need to communicate with the police than normal drivers? If there is no difference then a person should not be fined in one place and not in the other.

I think we should also be aware of the full impact of requiring every person on the road to speak English. You will be stripping countless people who are hearing or speech impaired of their licences if you do that.

I don't know why a commercial driver would be different. Maybe because they are on official business, and there could be more to it than just a personal ticket or problem. I would say it should apply to all drivers, though, not just commercial ones.

There's a big difference when it comes to people with disabilities. We make all kinds of concessions for them. This would be just another concession for them like ramp access to buildings, or braille in elevators and elsewhere, etc. Being physically incapable of speaking English is a lot different than refusing to learn it. It's not inconsistent to expect people with no relevant disabilities to speak English, and not expect people with relevant disabilities to speak it.
 

Laughing Man

1337 |-|4(|<3R
Dude... do you KNOW who "ProEnglish" is? They are xenoglossophobia central!

ProEnglish: The English Language Advocates

So, you are contending that only non-English speaking people run Stop Signs? I wonder if the FACTS would support this.

I am certain that you would find that the VAST majority of Stop Signs run in the US were done by people speaking English: ON THEIR STOOPID CELL PHONES. If you want to make our roads safer, don't worry about someone who could PASS their test. Obviously, they spoke English (or wrote it) just fine to pass the test! Maybe we should have them write an essay on the works of Newt Gingrich, who not so surprisingly, has JOINED the ProEnglish brigade! Maybe we should coin a new word here: English-Nazis. Works for me.

No, if you want safer roads, BAN cell phones. 'nuff said.

That website just happens to be where I pulled up the story, the fact of the matter is just as mball said, the language barrier can at times be dangerous. All I am saying is that allowing somebody to drive on the roads when they cannot read much less obey traffic signs adds an EXTRA unnecessary level of danger that can be fatal such as it was for this unfortunate family of five. I see no problem with requiring all driving test in the United States to be issued in English due to the fact that all of the street signs are in English.

I am not sure how you get the idea that I hate all non-English speakers Pete but it is totally unfounded. I would not expect to be able to go to Colombia and drive around when I cannot read the street signs in Spanish it would be dangerous and irresponsible of me to do so seeing as I could not read any of the signs. There is no reason to go to another country and not expect to learn the native tongue – this has nothing to do with being an “English-Nazi” I would hold the same true for going to France and learning French or going to Spain and learning Spanish.

And on another note as far as the proenglish site is concerned I had never been there before, nor am I a member, nor do I know anything about it – it has absolutely no bearing on this discussion. It is simply the site I pulled the news story from…. If it would make you feel better I am sure I can find the original source.
 

Scuba Pete

Le plongeur avec attitude...
For reasons beyond my control, I will not be participating further in this thread. Thanks to all who have fruballed me for my comments and please do not take my subsequent silence as acceptance.
 

Laughing Man

1337 |-|4(|<3R
For reasons beyond my control, I will not be participating further in this thread. Thanks to all who have fruballed me for my comments and please do not take my subsequent silence as acceptance.

That is a shame, aside from the name calling I was enjoying the vigorous debate.
 

Fluffy

A fool
mball said:
I don't know why a commercial driver would be different. Maybe because they are on official business, and there could be more to it than just a personal ticket or problem. I would say it should apply to all drivers, though, not just commercial ones.
If we give people concessions then should we allow people who are afflicted with dwarfism to drive forklifts? Is it a violation of their rights if we don't hire them because they are physically unable to operate the machines or should every employer be forced to purchase specially built forklifts for this case?

I propose that we don't give concessions to people with disabilities when it is unsafe to do so.

Is it unsafe to drive without being able to communicate in the lingua franca? If not then why should we restrict people who cannot?

If so then we should restrict everyone who cannot since otherwise people would be at risk. That would include:
1) People who live in the country but speak other languages
2) People who are speech or hearing impaired
3) Tourists
 
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