Immigrant communities could face a backlog of potential drivers after changes were made to Ohio’s license requirements.
A Class D license is what most people have for regular, everyday driving. Ohioans ages 16 and older can earn a standard license after taking an exam to get a learner’s permit and six months of driving with a fully licensed driver.
With the permit, people need 24 hours of classroom instruction, eight hours of driving with the driving school and 50 hours of driving with a licensed adult before taking the driving exam with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
A change took effect in June, requiring new immigrants to the country, lawful residents who are not citizens or green card holders, to get a “limited term license." This serves as a learner’s permit and requires them to go through the process of driving instruction and the set hours of driving.
Licensed drivers from Canada, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea or Taiwan are exempt from this requirement.
Patrick Kearns, executive director of Re:Source Cleveland, an organization that helps newcomers to the country get settled, is concerned the state isn’t ready to meet the demand of students needing driving instruction.
Kearns said his clients are worried about the costs of going through a driving school and, because of understaffing at the schools, getting a seat in a class without a long wait.
“That presents a real challenge, especially for working adults that are currently at a job, that currently have to support a household," Kearns said. "It is time consuming to schedule these things out of your workday. The costs are slightly prohibitive with families that are really trying to get by.”
Kearns said Re:Source Cleveland has scholarship money available to folks needing help to pay for driving school.
Because driving is mostly a necessity for working adults in Northeast Ohio, Kearns said he feels strongly that immigrants going through this license process will get impatient and start driving anyway.
“If they're pulled over with a driving infraction, that is something that will have an impact on their ability to apply for their green card and citizenship in the future,” Kearns said.
Data from the Ohio State Highway Patrol shows that there have been approximately 6,000 traffic related deaths in the state every year from 2020 to 2024.
Kearns believes the law change stems from an accident in 2023 where an immigrant in Ohio crashed into a bus, killing an 11-year-old boy in Springfield.
The crash was ruled an accident, but it sparked anti-immigration rhetoric. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance called it a “murder.”
“I think there was a rush to make things more safe," Kearns said. "I think we probably already have a system in place that honestly addresses those concerns already. Nobody is of the opinion to make things less rigorous, to make thing easier, to decrease safety for expedients. That's not the argument. The argument is we've created an overwhelming demand and we do not have the means to meet that demand.”
Some driving schools prepared for the influx. A spokesperson from Professional Driving School in Parma said some students had to wait a couple weeks longer than usual to get their driving portion of the instruction completed. But the school is in the process of hiring and training new instructors.
“We prepared," said Elayne Lucas with the school. "We knew this was coming. It's not like we knew today. We knew last month, two months ago, that this was coming.”
Kearns said because the law change is so new, the increase hitting driving schools has barely begun. Most of his clients haven’t started applying for driving schools yet.
Kearns said he is also concerned with how difficult or time consuming it can be to get a driving instructor certification, which requires being hired by a school before going through a training course.
Judy Converse, a spokesperson from the Ohio Department of Public Safety, says the state is taking steps to address the need for new instructors, including an instructor development grant program.
Schools can apply to become a training center and receive $1,500 for every instructor it trains. The new instructor would also get $1,500.
“Capacity was an issue at driver training schools, even before the law changed," Converse said. "Usually, in the state of Ohio, our business community reacts to that demand accordingly. This change could push the driver training market to grow."
Schools have until Oct. 31 to apply to be a training center for the program that starts in November.
