What happens if you are pulled over by the police for a DUI and you don't happen to speak English? How do you know what is going on? How can you understand your rights? The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled last week that officers must inform drivers of the consequences of refusing a DUI test in a language the driver can understand. New Jersey is the only state that requires this right now, but the legal  community believes other states will not be far behind.   It's about time.

Translation services are available to all Georgia law enforcement officers via phone - in fact almost all departments use the same service and the officers are trained how to use it in the field.  They simply put their phone on speaker and have the driver listen to the translation.  The service can translate what the driver says back into English for the officer, too.  I want to see it used every time it's needed.  It can only help-both the driver and the officer-avoid misunderstandings, help a situation go more smoothly, offer up real communication.

I know a lot of people have a knee jerk reaction of "This is America, we speak English here!" but the fact is that over 33 million people living in America are foreign born-that's about the entire population of Canada - and not everyone is going to be fluent.  In this day and age when a simple translation service is literally at an officer's finger tips, it must be used.