This reform will allow “the guarantee of equal opportunities for all candidates“, Ensured the interministerial delegate for road safety, Florence Guillaume, during a press conference at the National Institute of Young Deaf (INJS) in Paris.
Each year, around 4,000 candidates for the examination of the highway code have deafness or severe hearing disorders, the Ministry of the Interior estimates.
About 80% of deaf people are in “Big difficulty in the face of written French“, Recalled Karine Boure, specialized professor at the INJS, during the press conference. Anne-Marie Gallot, health counselor of the inter-ministerial delegate, specifying to AFP that reading” is learned by listening “.
The test therefore takes on the appearance of a obstacle course for these people, who do not manage, for the most part, to read the questions and answers in a very limited time.
To pass their Highway Code, theoretical examination of 40 questions, deaf or hard of hearing people had to request the presence of an interpreter in sign language enslaved by the Court of Appeal, a long and complex procedure.
From now on, those who request it may have access, in the road education offices (BER), to slides in which a video of an interpreter in LSF will directly translate the question and the response 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. So it will also reduce the cost of the permit at the same time for candidates“, Assured Céline Jallet, member of the pole in charge of managing driving license exams.
“”The driving license is a lever for social, professional, mobility, particularly crucial for deaf young people, often faced with difficulties in accessing housing, training, employment“, Praded Paul Flad, director of the INJS.
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) which will favor sign language, deaf from an ear or elderly who, on the contrary, often do not control it.