Category: News and Views
This is very exciting news for all blind Americans, and a huge victory for the ACB.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. discriminates against blind people by printing paper money that makes it impossible for them to distinguish among the bills' varying values, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.
The ruling upholds a decision by a lower court in 2006. It could force the Treasury Department to redesign its money. Suggested changes have ranged from making bills different sizes to printing them with raised markings. The American Council of the Blind sued for such changes but the Treasury Department has been fighting the case for about six years.
"I don't think we should have to rely on people to tell us what our money is," said Mitch Pomerantz, the council's president.
The U.S. acknowledges the design hinders blind people but it argued that blind people have adapted. Some relied on store clerks to help them, some used credit cards and others folded certain corners to help distinguish between bills.
The court ruled 2-1 that such adaptations were insufficient. The government might as well argue that, since handicapped people can crawl on all fours or ask for help from strangers, there's no need to make buildings wheelchair accessible, the court said.
Courts can't decide how to design the currency, since that's up to the Treasury Department. But the ruling forces the department to address what the court called a discriminatory problem.
Pomerantz says it could take years to change the look of money and until then, he expects that similar-looking money will continue to get printed and spent. But since blindness becomes more common with age, people in the 30s and 40s should know that, when they get older, "they will be able to identify their $1 bills from their fives, tens and twenties," he said.
Officials at the Treasury Department and the department's Bureau of Engraving and Printing, which prints the nation's currency, had no immediate comment on the ruling. The government could appeal to the Supreme Court.
While the government has been fighting to overturn the lower court ruling, it has been taking some steps toward modifying U.S. currency for the visually impaired.
The most recent currency redesign of the $5 bill introduced in March features a giant "5" printed in purple on one side of the bill to help those with vision problems distinguish the bill.
The appeals court also ruled that the U.S. failed to explain why changing the money would be an undue burden. The Treasury Department has redesigned its currency several times in recent years, and adding features to aid the blind would come at a relatively small cost, the court said. Other countries have added such features, the court said, and the U.S. never explained what made its situation so unique.
heh, that's one thing I'm grateful for here in the UK. All our paper money is different sizes. A 5 pound note, for example, is smaller than a 10 pound note, which is smaller than a 20 pound note, and so on. There's also a cool little plastic gadget thing that will measure up the size of the note to help you identify which one is which, but with time, you just get used to their different sizes and don't need the plastic thinggy.
Woo, go the English government for doing something right!
i think it's bloody crazy that the US of A, the most developed country in the whole of this world, can't get its money right for blind people. i went over there a few times in recent years, and the money issue was one that i never got used to. yay for the UK. and i would like to know why the US treasury bitch about changing their notes. what problems would a slight design change cause them?
big purple 5? pink on the 20's? Tell me how the hell that is supposed to aid a blind person? A visually impaired person yes, bright so they can see it better. But nowhere is tht purple five identifiable to the totally blind. I didn't even know there was a new five until my best friend asked if I'd heard of a purple five because she jsut got one and she thought it was fake.
*claps* But at the same time, even Mexico has accessible bills, the same way as in England, and other European countries.
i think the US are so backward in their money it's laughable. what a third world system they have there. they bang on about rights for disabled, but can't even get their paper money right, it's a disgrace. Roll on the UK! now let's see what I have in my wallet? a five pound note, a ten and a twenty, adding up to thirty five good old english quid. now, I did that without use of a plastic guide or a bit of technology. the USA need to learn from the UK maybe?
oh yes, and I must say I'm as blind as a bat and used the diffrent sized notes to work out what i had.
What's so hard about learning how to fold your money? Why does the U.S. have to accommodate us constantly? It's because of these lawsuits that the U.S. does not seem to respect blind people's rights. They don't respect us as blind people because we want every accommodation under the sun no matter how trivial. Don't people realize that changing the format of the bills in the U.S. Treasury requires time and expense that could be very well spent on something else? People just want to be lazy and think they deserve everything being handed them without having to work to be self-sufficient.
They already change the bills all the time. They put different colors, watermarks, etc, all to make it harder to counterfeit. What's so expensive about taking a few inches off a bill to distinguish it as a different nomination? Also, when was the last time a cashier gave you a nice, folded bill, so you could instantly tell what it was without having to ask him/her?
What's so hard about learning to fold your money? Joiking right?
Let's see, I will give you 5 different bill and tell you "ok, here they are. Fold away"
You can't do it can ya? Nope. You have to "RELY" on someone or something to tell you what it is. Not everyone can afford technology to identify money, not to mention that it isn't acurate because the U.S. is always changing the bills (putting new colors or whatever on them)
And face it, people lie. You can ask someone "is this a 5?" but they could be lying. I've been ripped off many of times and I have no proof. Sighted persons word against and blind persons. They have the eyes, I guess I just forgot and folded the wrong bill.
The only way this would work is if you constantly lived with Mommy and Daddy and had them help with everything. But there are many of us blind people that don't rely on our parents for everything and would love to be able to identify our money on our own just like any other person in this country.
If you go shopping do you always take a sighted friend or family member that you trust? If you go to the convinient store to get a coke? How can you fold money if you don't know what it is? You are going to have to have someone tell you what it is and this day in age you can't trust what people tell you.q
I normally put the English notes on top of each other so I can feel the different sizes. Has anyone seen euro notes? Are they different sizes or anything special about them to identify them?
The first thing that came to mind when I read these viscious attacks on the previous posts against the US government was that their understandable.
I wondered, though, was the currency in other countries changed because blind persons felt discriminated against, or was it always in a form accessible to them. I know in Mexico the currency has been the same for some time, and I don’t think its form was changed in response to blind persons’ feeling discriminated; it was probably always in a form easy for them to distinguish.
But this is actually a myth, according to the following site it’s myth number 9, and it’s been debunked, along with any others you can probably think of.
So the US needs to get its act together, or the evil money-hungry people will always take advantage of us.
The site is: http://www.ourmoneytoo.org/myths.php
euros as far as i know are different sizes also. i think the US is the only country thats currency is all the same size.
Martin
I agree with the person who said that most blind people in the US expect everyone to cater to them. There's a reason the system hasn't been changed: it's impractical and illogical. I think the reason other countries have different sized bills is because it's always been that way. Have you all ever heard the expression "if it ain't broke, don't fix it?" Well I think that applies in this situation. I think the only reason the government is bending over backwards now to try and make this "accomodation" is that in this sue-happy day and age, they were starting to get scared that if they didn't do something about this "problem," they would be up shit creek without a paddle in some way. Now, don't get me wrong, I understand the point some of you have been making about being lied to about what money you're given, but there's a relatively painless, simple solution that in the long run would be less expensive: those money identifiers. State agencies should do their best to provide these to blind people for little or no charge. It's about time they get off their lazy asses and do something useful anyways. This would solve the money problem instantly, rather than changing the entire system of currency, which wouldn't even make a difference for many years. See, the old currency isn't just going to drop out of existence. You're still going to go the store and get old money back, because it's not gonna go away--it's a part of this country and has been for over 200 years, so it won't just disappear. Finally, why is such a big deal being made about this, when so many other things should be focused on, such as voting machines, certain websites, and stuff like CD's and DVD's in stores, or anything with a bar code for that matter? We still have to rely on a sighted person to do our shopping, which in the end is a much bigger hindrance to our independence than somebody ripping us off one time. I think instead of sitting around trying to fix a problem that is minimal, we should be looking at the bigger picture of how it would actually affect the country as a whole, as well as focusing more on other issues that pose a greater threat to blind people. Don't you think it's embarrassing to have to go up to customer service and get people to stop what you're doing just because you have a white cane? I think so, and maybe this will change in the future as well, but for now, like I said, don't fix something that's not broken to begin with, the solution isn't that far away.
Money identifiers are not reliable, by any means. I've seen this for myself. A friend of mine had one, and as soon as she got it, we decided to try an experiment to see how well it worked. Well, the results were not pretty. We had a trusted sighted person with us, and we were trying to identify a $20 bill, but the identifier consistently said that it was a $1 bill. I have also heard from many other people who have had the same results. I don't understand why there are those who don't wish to have this changed. It's seems ridiculous and discriminatory to me that the government hasn't done anything sooner.
Yes, but we can't ignore the fact that the change isn't going to be automatic. The old money will still be in circulation for a long time after the currency is made accessible. Then you'll have people still whining and complaining about the fact taht they never see the accessible money they're supposed to be getting. This isn't the quick fix everybody seems to think it is, and I still don't agree with it anyway. Maybe then, there needs to be a study done, with people testing a new form of money identifier to see how well it would work before they put it on the market, because overall this would be a much cheaper solution than changing the whole system. And anyway, how do you propose we make the money accessible? If you put Braille on it, after it got passed down fro so many peoples' wallets and God knows where else, wouldn't the Braille get squished down? Wouldn't other raised symbols work the same way?
um, making the money accessible is easy. as this entire topic has said you make each bill a different size. Who wants to carry a money identifier everywhere they go. those things are so big and bulky. men don't have purses to carry them in. also, money is changing all the time, so it's not like people are being unreasonable for asking them to shorten each bill more and more. The come out with new quarters all the time, new fives, tens and even twenties twice in the past few years. . So yeah, it can be done. Change the size instead of the color. / Money in my opinion is a much bigger prolem, then asking someone for help while shopping. I mean you need money everywhere you go. I sure don't need to read a darn bar code everwhere i go. You go to a train station, cab, eat in place, delivery, like i said you need money everywhere you go. So if you want to call something catering to the blind, i would think making shopping , bar codes as you said on cd's and all that stuff, more catering to the blind then adapting our money so we know what is what. It also helps sighted people. I have heard many people in england say that they like it that way, so they don't look at the bill rong and hand them a ten instead of a one. there diferent xizes and that helps them too. So blind people aren't the only ones that are benefiting from it. my rant over!
Definitely agree with the last post, and like I said, they already change the money all the time, to make it harder to counterfeit. The bills aren't in circulation for that long either. also, how would providing people with electronics, that have to be tested and perfected, be cheaper than just cutting down the size of a bill? I agree that the raised symbols wouldn't work.
Exactly, so why start with only one thing? If we give in on this one issue, then we might expect the government to fix all our problems, right? I think that if this was such a problem, it should've been taken care of a long time ago. How come it's only being brought to peoples' attention now, and especially in these times when people just love to jump up and sue people for any reason they feel like? Changing something out of fear is the worst reason to do it. For example, those lids on McDonald's cups? Oh Please, how are they helpful? That's just the government's half-assed way of fulfilling the ADA criteria. Who's to say the money won't be the same way, only slightly helpful, like those big purple numbers on the 5?
Agreed, Shea! Yay for accessible currency! I wonder if these people who are protesting against this has ever been lied to about what bill they have? Think about all the things we all take advantage of. We wouldn't have them if people didn't advocate for them.
i think the faster you US people can get accessible currency the better. your dollars are worth shit to the blind until they know what they have in their hands.
Turtle, I agree that the US is entirely too lawsuit-happy. But this is really a different issue, that is very basic, and should've been addressed a long time ago. But yes, braille on drive-through ATM's is a bit ridiculous.
Hi, just a couple of points here for those who wish to argue against making Dollars accessible.
The fact that a person can fold their money, so as to tell what denomination they have, is called a trick, a useful trick to help in a situation where otherwise, one would be helpless.
Before a person can fold that bill, as it's been pointed out in this board, one needs to be told, if one can't see, what denomination of bill they are folding.
If one believes the solution lies with technology, think about how much it costs to have that technology available. It's over $300. So, one would spend over $300, to be able to tell that there is a one dollar bill in one's pocket. Let’s remember that in the US, 70% of the employable blind population, is unemployed.
As for the suggestion made above, of having state agencies pay for such technology, how on earth is that pushing for greater independence? Never leave anything up to bureaucracies, they are slow, inefficient, and always out for their own interests. In short, why have something inefficient, take place at a state level, when you can have efficiency at the federal level?
No one is asking for separate Braille money for the blind, what is being asked for is simple; money which is accessible to all.
i don't get this braille on a drive through A T M is worthless. haven't you ever been in the back seat an pulled up to a machine. didn't want the person your with to know your number? so put it in yourself? yeah, how would you have done that, with no braille. and before you say they can see the number on the screen, you can't. the numbers are x'd out when you put them in. so they can't see them.
having only been blind a short time, i used to be one that said how worthless i thaught the braille was since you can't see what's on the screen. i no longer agree with that though.
yes, I've sat many times in the back of a cab, they drove up to the atm and I operated the atm myself. Not pointless at all. Also you can always walk up to them. Just because it's drive through, you can still walk if you know how to get there.
Yeah, not everyone can afford the money identifiers and they aren't accurate since the government is always, and i do mean always, changing the money. So you have to constantly update it.
I dont' see why people are bitching so much about this? It's not going to hurt you is it?
Here in Canada we've had accessible money for some time now. In 1990 the Bank of Canada started giving money identifiers to anyone who needed them. In 2000, they replaced the identifiers with smaller models. Also that year, they started placing tactile markings on the bills. In one corner there's a raised print number. In another corner, you have one or more full braille cells. One cell for a 5 dollar bill, 2 for a ten, 3 for a twenty, etc. As pointed out in a previous post, the dots do fade after a while, but not as much as you'd think. I find that with the cells, coupled with the raised print number, I can tell what the bill is about 80% of the time. For the other 20 percent, I have my money reader.
On the whole I'm happy with the system we have, though I do think the British system of different sizes would be even better. I wonder though if that would cause trouble with vending machines, ATMs, and other machines that take cash. Has the British money always been different sizes, or is this a recent thing?
Yes. Make money accessible. It should've been done a long time ago. It will help the sighted too because sometimes not everyone looks carefully.
first, seventy percent of employable age blind are unemployed in the US? god! didn't know it was that high. so the most litigious society in the world cannot seem to employ blind people, even with the americans with disabilities act? well, there's no hope for us in the Uk then, where the stats are similar, and the legeslation poorly drawn, especially where blind are concerned. hmm, now for the accessible money, the American system has prooven how much it values it's blind citizens really. that is to say, they care little in my view. accessible money would have come along a long time ago if the system cared at all. the treasury are not saying, "yes let's do this," they are saying, "why should we?" which is wrong. America, the land of the free? rubbish!
With the money identifiers the state that I live in says that any tool that we need to live an every day life we have to pay for it are selfs which can get expensive at times.