Judge: Make Bills Recognizable to Blind

[smb]

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/11/28/national/w132749S07.DTL

By keeping all U.S. currency the same size and texture, the government has denied blind people meaningful access to money, a federal judge said Tuesday.


U.S. District Judge James Robertson said the Treasury Department has violated the law, and he ordered the government to come up with ways for the blind to tell bills apart....

[valerief]

1. About time! nt

[China_cat]

2. Ask the Dutch.

All bills in the Netherlands have always had Braille type symbols on the bills telling what denomination they are. My husband remembers learning this from his mother who had a blind roommate in the hospital when his younger brother was born (almost 60 years ago). She couldn't understand how the woman could count out money so easily. The woman showed her on the bills where to feel. If the Dutch could do it even more than 60 years ago, I would think we could do it easily now.

[Kagemusha]

3. According to the AP article, the dollar bill was deemed a 'govt program'

and on that basis it was violating an act passed to prevent discriminations in 'government programs'.

I wonder if that definition will hold up.

At any rate, I'm not the slightest bit qualified to judge what solutions to comply with this decision are sane and which ones aren't, though the different dollar bill size one sounds like it's unlikely to be adopted...

[smb]

5. How About Those Little Music Chips?

The bills could each have a little tune:

$1 -- "Yankee Doodle"
$2 -- "Brown Sugar"
$5 -- "The Battle Hymn Of The Republic"
$10 -- "Hit Me With Your Best Shot"
$20 -- "The Battle Of New Orleans"
$50 -- "Whiskey In The Jar"
$100 -- "Electric Avenue"

[krispos42]

18. ROTFLMAO!

Oh, that's HILARIOUS! :rofl:

:yourock: :toast:

[Redstone]

4. Well, why not? They do it elsewhere.

Redstone

[LostinVA]

6. It's about damn time n/t

[lumberjack_jeff]

7. Politicians are crooks right?...

This is a true story.

The person who runs the Washington State Capital cafeteria is totally blind. She is also the cashier.

Either she has some kind of psychic ability to interpret the denomination of currency, or people, particularly politicians, are more honest than they are commonly given credit for.

She'll ring your order up based on what the helpers prepared for you, then she'll say; "five-fifty-nine, out of ...?"

If you hand her a bill without answering the implied question, she'll ask you what you gave her. She's an institution at the capital - been in business a long time.

[smb]

20. How Many Legislators Does Washington State Have?

Up to a certain size, groups self-enforce fairly well, as word gets around if anybody is a sleaze ball who takes unfair advantage. It breaks down when a group gets large enough for somebody to become an anonymous face in the crowd.

[lumberjack_jeff]

21. Usually at least 15 people in line. She's busy. n/t

[truthisfreedom]

8. pressing braille bumps into currency is not a problem, but it may cause them

to feed badly through cash machines!

[Lisa]

12. we have the braille bumps up in Canada ...

And there doesn't seem to be a problem with the change machines. Although the patterns do tend to get worn down, on the very old bills. But (a blind friend told me this, and I had to check for myself) -- our fives are a tiny bit shorter than the higher-denomination bills, just a millimetre or so. He claims he can separate them out when he's got a stack of bills (though I tried it and couldn't do it).

And we replaced 1 and 2 dollar bills with coins a while ago ... the coins are different shapes and sizes (with different textures on the rims) so even a sighted person like me can tell them apart by feel.

[Ediacara]

14. Most currencies used raised features

And none have problems with machines...

[lindisfarne]

9. They could just cut different patterns into one edge of the paper.As usual, we're addressing

a problem at about the time it's ceasing to be a problem: cash is involved in smaller and smaller percent of transactions as time passes. What we need now is charge machines that can read out the total and have a way to tell blind folks where to sign. (a simple slightly raised line on the machine should accomplish the latter)

[eppur_se_muova]

10. Or perforations, similar to bumps, but a little harder to feel. nt

[Ediacara]

15. I keep hearing about this cashless society

But I think it'll become a reality on the 25th of Never.

[NYC Liberal]

22. Kind of like the "paperless office" eh?

Still more paper than ever.

[lindisfarne]

26. I didn't say "cashless society"; I said "cash is involved in smaller and smaller % of transactions

as time passes" and that we should be addressing the issue of making charge machines accessible to the blind. I use cash for less than 10% of my cashier-transactions, and while the percent for each individual may vary, it is without a doubt that as a society, we use cash for a far smaller percentage of transactions than we did just 10 years ago, and that percentage is only going to decrease. I never claimed that we would have a "cashless" society; what I did and am claiming is that cash will be involved in a smaller percentage of transactions in the future.

[Ediacara]

28. You said it right there in post #13

"Except we're moving towards a cash-less society"

[lindisfarne]

29. I said "moving towards". I did not say that it would be achieved.If 95% of transactions are noncash

that would be pretty darn close and would mean the blind would only very rarely have to deal with the problems caused by American bills all being the same size. Thus, we should be focusing on making electronic transactions more friendly to the blind.

[hcil]

11. WOW!

Finally after 16 years! This IS the TRUE SPIRIT OF THE ADA(AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT OF 1990(PL 101-336)!:wow: :toast: :kick: :grouphug:

[lindisfarne]

13. Except we're moving towards a cash-less society. Better to make electronic charge & debit machines

more friendly to the blind.

[melnjones]

16. no...

The more in poverty one is, the more one uses cash (generally). All of my blind friends fall in the poor category.

[Ediacara]

17. This is LONG overdue

I actually did the math on how many currencies have some kind of help for the blind.

15.5% have some sort of raised tactile features (some good, some not so good).

38.7% have larger denomination bills physically larger (some are just longer, some are both longer and taller).

24.4% have both raised tactile features and size differences.

21.4% have no features to aid the blind, most of these currencies are in the Western Hemisphere.

[greccogirl]

19. I agree. Blind people or vision impaired need to have

a way to know what they have.

[Lance_Boyle]

23. Nice sentiment, but

this ain't gonna be cheap. Could this inequity be remedied by providing free bill reading tools to the blind instead of redesigning the paper currency? I'd be willing to bet that supplying blind citizens with gizmos to read the bills and tell them the value would be more cost efficient than overhauling the nation's currency.

[Solon]

27. Hmm, good question...

let's think this through, modifying existing plating and other equipment, there isn't a lot of that in the country, maybe a few thousand said machines, to print paper money, so that the paper money is recognizable by blind people, a dimple, or brailled number for the denomination should suffice. Or giving every blind person(Millions of people) a portable optical scanner for free, let's see, uhm, I think modifying the currency is cheaper.

[depakid]

24. I've thought about this for years

And it's not like it would be difficult.

Moreover, the brand new bills are so ugly now anyway that they might as well be accessible to the blind.

Leave it to Republicans- everything they touch turns ugly.

[Hekate]

25. Not difficult and about time. The dollar coins also need to be...

... more readily distinguished from a quarter. Most countries have paper currency with different colors for different denominations -- something that also helps sighted people.

Hekate