I’m on the fence on this one.
I won’t do business with someone that I can’t communicate with. If I owned a business I wouldn’t hire anyone that wouldn’t be able to communicate with and therefore give good service to customers.
If the person can't speak English then the likelihood of that person being an illegal is pretty high if not 100% certain.
How can you not speak English when you need to understand traffic laws, the customer, police, etc, to get your citizenship and work permits? Yea, there are “spanish” tests but to be a professional driver you better know MORE than a few phrases or pictures.
Taxi's are hard enough without the driver not knowing how to speak English (try explaining to the driver where the destination is if they don't speak English, and also the non-English speaker will not be able to communicate clearly if there is a problem or needs to call the police. . .).
A couple years ago, got in a taxi in DC and said, “take me to the State Department Annex.”
Driver: “State Department”
Me: “No, State Department Annex”
Driver: “State Department!”
Me: “No, the State Department Annex”
Driver: “Yes, State Department!”
Got out.
Imagine you are new in town, don't know where anything is and the driver doesn't speak English and takes you to the wrong place — like the incident above. Not knowing any better and you WILL end up at the wrong place and then you have a whole new argument going where the driver makes it your fault and argues that you owe money for a trip to a place you didn't want to go.
Yuck. . .and this brings up a whole new yucky aspect. . .smell. Muslime driver (in the case above) stunk of sweat and perfume. . .typical third world stink. In addition to speaking English they should be taught about hygiene and how to stop smelling.