BMV making sweeping change to translate drivers manuals into more languages
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles is making a sweeping change to translate drivers manuals into several different languages.
This is the result of a settlement in which the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit claiming discrimination because these manuals were not translated in a variety of languages.
For the average person in Indiana getting your first drivers license can be daunting. You first have to learn the rules of the road, then prove you know them through a written test. But that task gets even harder when you don’t speak the language.
“Most of them about 99% of them, when they arrive, they just learn how to drive,” said executive director of the Burmese American Community Institute Elaisa Vahnie.
As Indianapolis diversifies, more people are having to navigate using a language they don’t understand.
“Everybody needs to drive if they are to be independent,” said Vahnie. “Which is very important in terms of how you integrate and exercise your freedom in this community in this country.”
Right now, driver tests are available in more than a dozen languages. But the driver manuals only come in English and Spanish. Come March 2021, that’ll change. Manuals will be translated into Burmese, Chin, Arabic and Mandarin and will be available for free online.
“I think it would be a good idea because most Burmese people that I know for the immigrants they don’t know most of the stuff about this,” said Burmese-Chin immigrant Lal Chan.
Over a three-year period, 500 or more people took the drivers test in Burmese, Chin, Arabic and Mandarin. That data helped the BMV determine which languages to translate first.
“I don’t think this is a lose or win. Everyone wins, not just the Burmese or the Chin or the other languages, but this is for really, I think, Indiana,” said Vahnie.
He said the change is extremely beneficial for people who may have never driven in their home country.
BMV representatives said they’ll be getting the translations done over several months and will release each manual as it is completed.
Costs will be covered by existing funds in the budget.
Another part of that settlement explain that the BMV will continue to monitor the types of tests that are being handed out. From there they’ll be able to determine if more manuals need to be translated in other languages.