Road Signs & Mexican Trucks
Reading English is fundamental.

By Jim Boulet Jr., executive director of English First
July 31, 2001 11:10 a.m.

very person who has played navigator on a car trip will remember whizzing by a tiny road sign and attempting to read it in a timely manner. Now imagine trying to so while steering a tractor-trailer rig loaded with gasoline amidst speeding highway traffic. You now understand why many ordinary Americans are genuinely concerned about the Mexican truck issue.

While the U.S. Senate was continuing to debate Mexican trucks last Friday, I was a passenger during a drive from Maryland to Virginia Beach. Ask yourself, as I did, what the consequences might be if a truck driver should be unable to read the following signs which appeared along our route:

No Stopping

Notice to Truckers: Return Trip Tunnel Height 13' 6"

(Sign at an exit) Warning: Traffic May Be Stopped Ahead.

Reduce Speed Ahead

Tank Trucks, Vehicles with Hazardous Materials: Stop for Inspection

Now some NRO readers will say, correctly, that other countries do not require language tests for American visitors who rent cars.

But both the roads and the laws of physics are simply more forgiving for the driver of a 2,000-pound automobile who misses a warning sign than they are for the driver of a 10,000-pound "big rig." The weight of even an unloaded tractor-trailer when in motion at highway speeds generates the kind of momentum which vastly increases the distances required to stop safely.

Truck drivers have a dangerous job even when they are able to read road signs written in English. Any driver error on a highway which involves a large tractor-trailer, even if the truck driver is blameless, can have drastic and deadly consequences.

Those who are busy fighting for more Mexican trucks on our highways should first spare a moment to do something to ensure that all drivers, especially all truck drivers, who travel America's roads can read and understand English. Their constituents will thank them. And the lives they save may someday include their own.