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Judge Says U.S. Money Violates Rights of the Blind
An anonymous reader writes, "The United States is one of the few countries in the world whose currency isn't distinguishable by blind people. Most other nations use raised text, different-sized bills, or other methods to assist blind people in spending their money. If a recent decision by a federal court in D.C. survives appeal, however, that will soon change. Under Sec. 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, federal programs cannot deny 'meaningful access' to people with disabilities. Because blind people are unable to distinguish U.S. currency without assistance, the court held that they are denied meaningful access to their own money. U.S. District Judge James Robertson ordered the Treasury Department to come up with ways for the blind to tell bills apart. He said he wouldn't tell officials how to fix the problem, but he ordered them to begin working on it." How Appealing notes that Judge Robertson opened the door to a speedy appeal of his ruling.
Why is the Treasury Department appealing this ruling? They should embrace it and start solving the problem.
Who exactly is harmed with this decision? I don't even see why it went to court in the first place.
Doesn't it make sense to have easily distinguishable notes anyway, blind or not? Finding the correct note in your wallet is much slower with dollars than Euros or pounds.
and turn it into a coin. Not this half-assed production of a few coins and predominantly bills. Get it over with and make it purely coins. It'll make vending machines more convenient. Coins are easily distinguishable.
On mony, just have an imprinted (raised) mark whereever the denomination number is printed. It doesn't have to be elaborate - just dots like braile.
I'm surprised this didn't come sooner with the Americans with disabilities act, or some such.
This is modded 'funny', but instead I would mod it 'horrifying'. This is EXACTLY how the system would be exploited. The only use for this system is to make it so blind people don't need to ask for help to verify the money is legit. This con would then make it so they still need to ask for help. How did anything improve?
Okay, I suppose if they want to count the money in their wallet, and they KNOW it's all legit, this would help. But they each probably already have a system for that, anyhow. Different folds, dog-ears, etc. At the expense of the whole of the United States, we can help them NOT ONE BIT.
Sounds great, let's do it.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
To make any changes to currency would not only require completely recirculating the billions of papers out there, but it would probably require drastic changes to the printing process. Different shapes, sizes, or including braille print sound like expensive alterations.
I doubt the courts would require all currency to be recalled, especially since much currency has only an 18-month lifespan. And since we're redesigning the larger bills (5 through 100) every 7 years or so, we've already committed to spending a certain amount of money on redesign. Incorporating some raised devices (as on Canada's currency) would be a trivial addition to the next round of redesigns.
Changing the size of currency would obviously cost a lot more, but the Treasury is constantly looking at new printing technology, and so that could also be spread out as they replace equipment. Nobody said this had to happen overnight. And, oh, we've done this before -- in the 1920's we changed from a large format currency to the current small-sized notes. And before anyone brings up vending machine and ATM manufacturers' complaints, differing note sizes hasn't hurt anyone in Europe (where ATMs regularly dispense bills in four or more denominations, each a different size).
And this might finally be what lets Congress stand up to lobbyists and kill the dollar bill. Not only are we out of step with the rest of the world on blind access to currency, we're just about the only major country stubborn enough to still use currency for our primary currency measure -- everyone else, Pounds, Euro, Canadian Dollar, Australian Dollar, have coins for 1 and 2 unit, and sometimes even 5 unit, denominations. I read recently that eliminating the dollar bill would save half a billion (BILLION) dollars a year, and that was a 1995 study, so it's probably even higher. But lobbyists (primarily for the unions that produce the paper) have consistently stopped cold any attempt to switch to coins only.
Anyway, I think the Judge is right and, though this wouldn't be free, it wouldn't be an undue burden.
And now we hit upon the Great Slashdot Self-Absorption.
Because you don't use cash any longer, no one does.
This premise can be expanded by stating that if anyone still does do the thing you don't do (or, conversely, doesn't do the thing you do) they are morons.
To ward off the sample size critics you could state that no one you know uses cash either.
Hm, I have yet to see a free money or debit card reader anywhere. For bills, money identifiers are quite expensive and a bit bulky. As far as debit card readers, those are not free either. Sometimes state agencies for the blind may be willing to pay for one, on an individual basis, but that certainly does not apply to the majority of blind people.
Also, note that you can't just use debit cards for everything. There are quite a few things in life that you do need cash for, and blind people should not be excluded from being able to use regular money.
Finally, making bills accessible isn't really rocket science. Looking around at other countries around the world, the US is really far behind in this. Unfortunately for the blind, the US treasury has a very large loophole (although it could make for an interesting legal battle): all US currency ever printed remains legal tender, so even if new bills are made accessible, there will remain a large amount of inaccessible bills in circulation for a *long* time. Other countries have been able to replace bills. On the other hand, that also means that it is even more important for the US to act on this immediately, because the problem only gets bigger (and they already missed the boat on the last bill redesign (using colour) that went through recently).
How about just using a wacky scheme like other countries; have each note in a different colour (helps partially sighted "blind" people who can distinguish colour, not to mention helping everyone else distinguish quickly), have each note a different size (helps everyone even if not the only measure to be taken), have tactile surfaces (helps blind and is another non-trivial mechanism that counterfeiters have to copy), have the numbers written large and clearly (again, helps everyone, and helps a lot of partially sighted, incl. even just longsighted).
Seriously, this stuff is not rocket science. I sincerely hope that this judgement means the US govt. will stop living in past centuries, at least when it comes to banknotes. The US is so *old* when it comes to so many things - I was astonished when I visited there! "Old Europe" is nothing like old, so much upheaval in the last century.
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