QUICK SUMMARY: On February 6, 2026, Florida began requiring every driver’s license exam to be given in English only. The rule followed a string of fatal highway crashes involving commercial drivers who could not read road signs in English. However, Miami’s driving schools found a loophole that teaches students to pass the exam without learning the language. This rendered the Florida driver’s license English-only rule all but useless.
Because of a major accident, a rule concerning the Florida driver’s license exam changed overnight. On August 12, 2025, Harjinder Singh drove a tractor-trailer across every lane of the Florida Turnpike near Fort Pierce and tried to make a U-turn through an “official use only” opening. Sadly, a minivan with three people inside slammed into his rig. All three died.
Singh crossed the southern border illegally in 2018. Washington State issued him a regular commercial driver’s license in July 2023. California issued him a second commercial license in July 2024. When federal investigators tested him after the crash, he answered 2 of 12 verbal questions correctly and identified 1 of 4 highway traffic signs.
Within weeks, a petition on Change.org asked Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to show Singh leniency. It called the crash “a catastrophe, not a criminal act.” Nearly 2.5 million people signed it. DeSantis’s office gave a two-word answer: “No deal.”
Then Florida changed the rules.
The Rule, the Date, and the Mechanism Owner
On January 30, 2026, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles announced that every driver’s license exam in the state would be administered in English only. The rule took effect Friday, February 6, 2026, and applies to every classification, including oral tests. No interpreters. No translation devices.
FLHSMV Executive Director Dave Kerner signed the rule. Governor DeSantis endorsed it on X: “Good reform by FLHSMV to require driver exams to be conducted only in English. Need to be able to read the road signs!” Florida joins Wyoming, South Dakota, and Oklahoma as the only states requiring English-only exams. Alabama has a similar bill pending.
Before the rule, the Florida driver’s license exam was offered in Spanish, Haitian Creole, Portuguese, Russian, Vietnamese, and more. In Hillsborough County alone, about 13,517 skills tests, or 37 percent of the total in 2025, were given in non-English languages.
That math ends now.
The Federal Pattern Florida Is Extending
Singh was not the only one.
On December 9, 2025, Yisong Huang, a 54-year-old Chinese national, rear-ended a tractor-trailer on Interstate 40 in Tennessee while driving a tour bus. According to the Tennessee Highway Patrol and the Department of Homeland Security, Huang was distracted by a video on his phone when the crash occurred. The pileup killed Kerry Smith, an American citizen, and injured two others. Huang had obtained his commercial driver’s license through New York State. He failed an English proficiency test after the crash.
The federal response came first. President Trump signed an executive order on August 28, 2025, declaring that English proficiency “should be a non-negotiable safety requirement for professional drivers.” As of late October 2025, more than 7,200 commercial truck drivers had been pulled off American highways for failing English proficiency checks.
“If you can’t proficiently speak English, right now, we’ll take you out of the rig,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at a February press briefing. Duffy called Florida’s rule “common sense.”
Florida’s state-level rule extends that federal logic to every driver’s license classification, not just commercial.
The Loophole Is Already Open
Meanwhile in Hialeah, Florida, Speedway Driving School conducts classes in Spanish to teach students how to pass the Florida driver’s license exam without learning English.
Instructor Johannes González teaches students to memorize key English words by matching them to Spanish cognates. Velocity. Velocidad. Pedestrian. Peatón. González knows he cannot teach English fluency in short classes. He teaches pattern recognition instead.
School owner Yuri Rodríguez said enrollment is down because students are afraid of failing the new exam. The ones who do enroll are paying for longer classes and more pattern memorization.
The rule required English proficiency. The loophole teaches test-taking.
The Critics’ Case Against the English-only tests to Acquire a Florida Driver’s License
Critics say the rule is not about safety. Former Miami Mayor Manny Díaz, now chair of the Florida Democratic Party, said: “My first thought was, ‘My God, I thought we were done with this.'” PolitiFact reviewed the safety claim and found no academic studies showing that non-English testing produces more dangerous drivers. The American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators’ guidelines say a person’s inability to read or speak English “is not necessarily a barrier to proper motor vehicle operation.”
Insurance experts raised a separate warning. More than one in five Florida drivers is already uninsured. If the English-only rule pushes more drivers onto the road without proper certification, licensed drivers pay through higher premiums.
The Defenders’ Case
Supporters of the rule include Florida Rep. Berny Jacques, a Haitian-born Republican from Seminole. Jacques noted that Floridians voted in 1988 to make English the state’s official language.
“If you don’t know what road signs are saying, you’re more likely to get into a car accident that puts all of us in peril,” Jacques said. “It’s easy to get comfortable when you have a situation where there are a lot of people from your own community, you can go throughout a whole lifetime, going about and transacting business without ever speaking English.”
Florida Congressman Randy Fine put it plainer: “We’ve seen accidents where people couldn’t read the signs because they don’t speak English. Our road signs are in English.”
What Happens Next
Florida will display citizenship status on driver’s licenses starting in 2027. The Florida Senate is advancing SB 86, which would require law enforcement to take undocumented truck drivers into custody and impose $50,000 fines on the owners. Federal highway funding is already tied to English proficiency enforcement. Alabama has a similar bill moving.
The rule is a line. The loophole is a pattern. The next round of legislation will tell us whether Florida was the outlier or the vanguard.
Three Americans are dead on the Florida Turnpike. Seven thousand two hundred truckers are off the road. Two point five million people signed a petition for the driver who killed three Americans. And Florida’s answer was two words.
No deal.
Frequently Asked Questions
When did the English-only Florida driver’s license test take effect?
The rule took effect Friday, February 6, 2026. The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles announced the change on January 30, 2026.
Does the Florida English-only driving test apply to commercial licenses, too?
Yes. The rule applies to every driver’s license classification, including Commercial Learner’s Permits and Commercial Driver’s Licenses. It also applies to oral exams. No interpreters or translation devices are allowed.
Is there evidence that non-English testing produces more dangerous drivers?
PolitiFact reviewed the question in February 2026 and found no academic studies or government reports showing that drivers who take tests in foreign languages pose a greater road threat. The American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators says inability to read or speak English is not necessarily a barrier to proper motor vehicle operation, as long as the driver can interpret signs, signals, and markings. Florida officials and federal officials cite specific fatal crashes involving non-English-speaking drivers as the justification.
Could the Florida English-only driving test raise my car insurance rate?
Possibly. More than one in five Florida drivers are already uninsured, and Florida already has some of the highest auto insurance premiums in the country. Insurance experts warn that if the rule pushes more drivers onto the road without licenses and without insurance, the cost of coverage for licensed drivers could climb. Similar rules in Alabama and at the federal level would widen the exposure beyond Florida.
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