Driver and Vehicle Services giving more written tests in Spanish than ever before

Minnesota’s Driver’s License for All law went into effect a year ago, and it has fueled a huge increase in the number of applicants taking their written tests in Spanish.

From Oct. 1, 2023, through Sept. 30, 2024, the state’s Driver and Vehicle Services (DVS) administered 113,587 knowledge tests in Spanish, up dramatically from just over 16,100 the previous year, according to state data released this week.

Latino and Hispanic residents make up about 6% of the state’s population, according to the U.S. census taken in 2020. But state law that allows anybody to apply for a driver’s license, permit or standard ID card regardless of their immigration status is the main driver behind a 500% increase in tests administered in Spanish, said Jody-Kay Peterson, DVS program director.

DVS administered more than 209,900 written tests in English over the past year, the most of any of the eight languages in which tests are available. Spanish was the second most popular followed by Somali, Russian, Vietnamese, Hmong, Karen and American Sign Language. Another 935 applicants chose to have a proctor read the English version of the test questions to them, the data shows.

DVS offers tests in eight languages.

“We want to make sure anybody intending to drive can be prepared and take a written test,” Peterson said. “We don’t want any barriers.”

But has it helped? Just over 57% of applicants who take an English version of the test pass, DVS said. That rate drops to 44% for tests administered in Russian, 40.5% for American Sign Language, 30.6% for Vietnamese and 24% for those taken in Spanish. (Hmong and Somali were even lower.)

Test takers who had somebody read questions to them passed 71.8% of the time, DVS data showed.

“It could be better,” Peterson said of the results. “People can practice more. They can study more.”

In hopes of pushing the pass rate higher, DVS spent several months rewriting the state’s updated driver’s manual that was released this summer and posted online. The agency adopted a 17-step plain-language plan to make it easier to read and understand the laws, Peterson said.

“Anybody who has an eighth-grade reading level should be able to understand layman’s terms,” Peterson said. “Jargon and run-on sentences are gone.”

Questions appearing on driver’s tests will feature shorter and clearer sentences, with verbiage nearly identical to that in the manual, she said

“We want people to be able to say, yes, I understand that,” Peterson said.

In another move, DVS on Wednesday released a series of videos to help drivers learn what to expect before, during and after taking their road tests.

“If people prepare, know what to expect and pass the test, there will be shorter wait times because there will be less repeat test takers,” said DVS spokesman Mark Karstedt.