Foreign-language driving tests pulled because of cheating fears

PHILADELPHIA - State officials have stopped offering some foreign-language versions of the driving test after finding that cheat sheets were being sold on the street.

''It is not a position we have taken lightly,'' said Joy Gross of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. ''We know that there's a need out there ... but we also have to find the best way to ensure the safety of the driving public.''

Soon after Russian, Chinese and Vietnamese versions were first offered last year, FBI agents on an unrelated investigation found answer keys to the tests were being sold. Officials said they didn't know how many people had cheated, but the pattern was extensive enough to warrant canceling the tests.

The department stopped offering the Russian and Chinese tests over the summer and pulled the Vietnamese version this month.

Advocates said the decision could prove disastrous for immigrants, many of whom must drive to get to work on night shifts or at odd hours in factories, landscaping businesses, warehouses and restaurants.

''They can spend hours and hours studying and still flunk, because they can't overcome the language,'' said Sharon Wong Tong, owner of Chinatown's Fidelity Driving School. ''These are working people. Having a license is vital to their living.''

English and Spanish versions are computerized, allowing 18 questions to be randomly selected from a database of 300 and reducing the probability that any two tests will be exactly alike. But only four versions of each test were produced in Chinese, Russian, Vietnamese and Serbo-Croatian.

A spokesman said the department was looking at ways to create computerized foreign-language exams, but any changes would probably have to wait until 2002, when the state's contract with the testing company expires.