One more step towards accessibility. A version of the road code traveled to French sign language (LSF) will be implemented from this summer, which will allow deaf or with hearing problems to access the driver’s license more easily, announced road safety on Tuesday.
This reform will allow “the guarantee of equal opportunities for all candidates”, will ensure the interminiisterial delegate for road safety, Florence Guillaume, during a press conference at the National Institute of Young Deaf (LE) in Paris.
Every year, about 4,000 candidates for the examination of the road code have deafness or severe auditory disorders, the Ministry of Interior Estimates.
About 80% of deaf people are in “great difficulty against written French,” said Karine Boure, a professor specialized in Injes, during the press conference. Anne-Marie Gallot, health advisor of the inter-ministerial delegate, specifying the AFP that the reading “is learned listening.”
Therefore, the test acquires the appearance of an obstacle career for these people, who do not handle, for the most part, read the questions and answers in a very limited time.
Slides available in LSF
To approve their road code, the theoretical examination of 40 questions, deaf people or with hearing problems had to request the presence of an interpreter in sign language enslaved by the Court of Appeals, a long and complex procedure.
From now on, those who request it may have access, in the Route (Ber) education offices, slides in which a video of an interpreter in LSF will directly translate the question and the answer options.
“What will change is that there may be more availability within the BER because there will no longer be the presence of the translator. Therefore, it will also reduce the cost of permission for the candidates,” said Céline Jallet, a member of the pole in charge of managing driver’s license exams.
“The driver’s license is a lever for social, professional mobility, particularly crucial for deaf young people, often faced with difficulties in accessing housing, training, employment,” Paul Flad, director of Intjs, praised.
Six to seven million people are considered to be hearing loss in France, but this brings together very diverse situations: deep deaf (80,000 to 100,000 people) that will favor sign language, deaf from an ear or elderly who, on the contrary, often do not control it.
Source: BFM TV
