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.

Fold your $!

[Fecal Troll Matter]

I always did wonder how, in the U.S., blind people dealt with money. I ended up meeting a friend of my father's who was blind, so I asked him. He told me that he has someone (someone who can see, obviously) fold his money a certain way -- singles get folded in half, 5's got folded into an L-shape, 10's got folded another way and so on so that he always knew what denomination of money he was taking out of his wallet.

Accessibility is good for everybody

[MichaelSmith]

Ramps built into buildings for wheelchairs make it easier to get heavy gear in and out. Braile on ATM keyboards and lift buttons make it easier to distinguish between keys. Audio-tactile devices on pedestrian crossings provide a better UI for people regardless of whether they can see or not.

Trust me. US currency will be better for everybody if it accomodates blind people.

I don't understand what the problem is

[JumperCable]

About 8 years ago I working in a building that had a blind man (none of this legally/partially blind bs) running the convience stand. He showed me one day how he determined the value of the currency handed to him. He felt the ridges on the corners of the bills. He could also feel the patterns of the faces.

Pull out an old style $1 from your wallet. This the type of bill he was working with at the time. The black ink is slightly raised. The newer bills have slightly raised black ink too with different patterns. Run your finger nail across them to feel the ridges.

ATMs

[tttonyyy]

Come to think about it, ATMs must be nigh on impossible to use too.

Inserting the card and entering a PIN sounds doable blind - but then you're presented with screens to navigate via soft keys (and it's different between ATMs). No chance.

Funny the things us sighted people take for granted.

Re:ATMs

[Alkonaut]

ATM:s here (Europe) have Braille buttons and one button switches on a speaker voice reading the instructions on screen.

Poor decision by a bad judge

[will_die]

This is just a really poor decision that should be blocked by the next court up the chain. Reading the decision the judge goes into how bad it is that the bill are all the same and how it places a hardship, which it does. However devices are available which allow around which allow the money to meet the law. The judge should of told the people sueing that they should go take it up with thier congressmen; instead of doing this stupid soapbox speech.

Some other decision by him:
Private unions cannot expell members who spread "falsehood and misrepresentation" because that breaks the members freedom of speech.
Has through out a few cases for companies giving expensive gifts to government officials.
In various court cases has just ignored major case points on various parties and ruled based on older laws that had been superceded.

Re:Don't do what china does

[jez9999]

blind people are completely incapable of judging size anyway as it has no meaning to them; theirs is a world without size, colour, distance or space.

I can agree with you on colour, but without size, distance or space? I don't think so; they'd have trouble doing anything at all if they couldn't perceive those. Check out this guy [youtube.com].

Don't mess about, join the Euro

[ebcdic]

What's the point of creating new bills when there's already a standard? It's time to switch to the Euro. And with your currency in free-fall, you'd be better off too.

Of course, it would have saved a lot of trouble if you'd switched a few years ago, when the dollar and Euro were equally valuable.

Not that I'm advocating the hole punch method

[benhocking]

But the solution to the aforementioned problem is to make the highest currency bill have the least holes. Therefore, you could turn a $100 bill into a $1 by punching holes, but not vice-versa. There are other problems with the idea, of course.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Money Reader

[Sox2]

Not everywhere takes credit/debit: try using one on a coke machine or at a hot dog stand and prepare to go thirsty/hungry. The inability to distinguish notes is quite a big deal to the substantial number of people with sight discibilities. The US currency has a history of being slow to adopt sensible measures - only relatively recently was a realistic attempt at address forgery added to the greenback.

I can't explain it...

[shaneh0]

...But my great grandfather, who went blind at 60 to Glaucoma, was able to identify a denomination with 100% accuracy. It was a dinner-party trick that always delighted the crowd. He lived until 90 and, while I'm not sure if this was an acquired skill, as long as I knew him (the last 10 years of his life), he was never wrong. So there must be SOMETHING to it. I always speculated that it could've been that he could actually feel the boundries of ink in the paper, or something like that. I once thought that he was just guessing based on how worn the bill was, but crisp bills worked just the same.

Also, this was with the pre-clinton era currency.

Maybe he was a freak, but have they actually asked any blind people about this?

Re:This is an easy thing to solve...

[Znork]

"If you want people to stop using 1$ bills, STOP PRINTING THEM."

You're assuming it's the treasury that's actually printing the $1 bills.

Seriously tho, it's been done lots of times in a lot of countries; you not only stop printing them, you set a deadline for validity. After that, shops wont take them and you have, like, a year or something during which banks will trade them in. Then you have several years when it's possible to trade them in at the treasury, or something. After that, it's the collectors market.

Personally, I suspect that the invalidation is what scares the treasury and/or politicians. With the dollar (unlike more regularly upgraded and less distributed currencies), there's the risk that there's actually so much unaccounted for mattress and black market (real and/or counterfeit) currency that its sudden reentry into circulation might even cause fluctuations in the exchange rates, which would further devalue the dollar as a general exchange medium.

Re:Money Reader

[PDAllen]

Notes remaining legal tender isn't really all that uncommon. What everyone does is to simply stop reissuing the old variety, so every time an old style note goes into a bank it gets destroyed, and a new style note comes out in its place. Give it six months and you still see a few old style notes about, but not very many - think about how long you normally hang onto a note for: a few days at most. This is also why you don't see too many ripped and tattered notes about, banks destroy them when they get them.

Re:Money Reader

[Colonel Angus]

I don't know if this trend is happening elsewhere, but many stores in my area charge a fee to use debit cards.

Some have a fee no matter what you owe. Some charge if it's under $x. Some don't charge at all, but it's becoming much more widespread.

I've gone from being a debit card whore (hadn't carried a bill in my wallet in about 5 years) to cash again because of this.

I wouldn't want to be forced to use my debit card and lose more money with every transaction just because I'm blind. There's not always another store a) nearby or b) carrying what I want.

Re:FINALLY

[Jtheletter]

Why the hell are all our bills the same size, shape, and color?

Well, this may not be the actual truth, but I seem to recall that this is what I learned in grade school. When the US government finally standardized the monetary system they made a conscious decision to make all bills the same size and color to prevent them from being easily recognizable from a distance as a security measure. The idea was if someone pulls out a wad of bright orange $100 bills, as opposed to blue $1s then a mugger could spy this and know just who to rob. Of course, I always thought this was a bit silly because a wealthy mark gives themselves away in other ways such as quality of clothing, jewelry, etc. which is why I'm not sure this is a real fact. More likely, I think, is that it was easier and cheaper to use just one ink and one size on the cutting machine. I'll bet wikipedia probably has a better explanation but I leave that as an exercise to the reader. ;)

Re:Why appeal?

[OfficialReverendStev]

I have mod points but had to reply. *sigh* IUTWBEP (I Used To Work for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing) There are several reasons why the Treasury Department would resist this change: 1. There has just been a recent currency redesign. Each one usually takes ~10 years from start to finish. 2. The time it takes has little to do with "retooling" the machines. In fact, during the last changeover there was no gap in production. That is, the old 20's were printed right up until the time the new ones started. The reason? The new currency is printed on new machines. 3. Instead the time is taken by the actual design and preparation process. It takes years to actually get a design that everybody involved (more than you think) will accept. There are always minute details that get changed or massaged until all of the needs and wants are satisfied. Many special groups (in this case, for the blind) will be called in to consult. That frightens federal workers because a. most federal employees don't really care for contractors, despite what they tell you and b. it always takes longer when a consultant is involved, in the federal government or not. 4. The cost of changing the currency is astronomical. It's figured into the budget (my uncle is the chief of budget there... I didn't work for him though, no nepotism) over the course of that ~10 years. To mandate a change in the middle of a cycle will cause serious budget issues. 5. The vending machine industry will vehemently protest because every machine that accepts a bill will need to be changed. Sure, you could propose that we keep the $1 bill the same so that the vast majority of machines won't have to be updated and you're probably right. Unfortunately the vending machine companies will still protest. 6. Assuming this does get passed it will still take years to have it implemented, especially without specific instructions as to how to proceed. 7. If the project is rushed by court order or Treasury mandate the job will not be done well, or will blow the roof off of the budget. Oh yeah, by the way, BEP is NOT funded by Congress. The Federal Reserve buys the currency from them. Therefore, if the budget skyrockets Congress can't just step in and add more cash, unless there's... well an act of Congress. And quit it with the "they can just print more money" lines. Nobody who works for Treasury has ever though that was funny or clever. 8. If it's ordered to be done quickly and there is no budget increase it will be done poorly. Keep in mind that BEP employees, especially those working the presses are some of the finest in their field in the world. However, as anybody in IT will know, it doesn't matter how good you are at your job; if you're rushed and not properly-funded to meet the rush the job suffers. That's what I came up with off the top of my head. There are probably more problems. Maybe this can be worked into the next redesign but that should be a few years underway already. It's hard to change gears in the middle of a long-term project. Don't get me wrong though, I'm all for accessability. I think that it should be done, but now is not the time.

Re:Accessibility is good for everybody

[bmajik]

But, it has a cost. I don't know how often you've tried to use cash-accepting vending machines in the US, but even with our uniform sized notes, my entire life I've come to expect that there is a 5-20% failure rate on a given machine accepting a given note. Imagine my total surprise when i found that machines in Germany had no problem accepting the different sized Euro notes without trouble.

Significant retooling will be required by all commercial entities in the US that deal with automated cash handling machines. ATMs, food vending, etc etc.

Analagously, ADA rules have prevented my wife from opening a small business - the mandatory changes required to the building simply destroyed the budget for the project.

ADA Compliance / Accessability has a cost, and it tends to be an up-front cost.

On the positive side, it may have unintended benefits later - for instance, the pervasive keyboard/accessibility support in the Windows platform and applicatinos make UI automation of Microsoft programs somewhat easier than some other systems.

I think people fall into a trap and use emotional based reasoning too often. There are real costs and real disadvantages to making things Accessible. From a business perspective, it is often "not worth it". Certainly there exists some disability such that it is completely ridiculous to try and support persons with that condition.

There's been a lot of "innovation" in US currency lately. The people that work on this sort of stuff are being paid with tax dollars... tax dollars that might be better spent elsewhere.

Ok, who am I kidding. My tax dollars never get spent well. Might as well use it on resizing currency notes :)

Re:This is an easy thing to solve...

[mark-t]

They tried to do that in the US

No they didn't. the US only introduced the coin, but they never stopped printing the $1 bill.

Canada has actually had a $1 coin for a _VERY_ long time, but it was not until they introduced a $1 coin that was intended to completely replace the bill that its usage actually started increasing. The mint reduced circulation of $1 bills, ultimately ceasing printing them completely, and bills that found their way to a bank were to be turned over to the mint and replaced with coins to ensure increased circulation. As a note of interest, this coin is, as most are doubtless aware, often called "The Loonie" by the public, which at least originally was a pun name, because the coin portrays a loon on the tails side of the coin, and when they first announced intent to replace the bill with the coin, most thought that the idea was a crazy one. Because of this reaction, many people horded $1 bills that they came across in respectable condition, possibly hoping that they would grow in value. This hording reduced the number of $1 bills that the mint was able to successfully recall out of circulation and as a result, the Canadian $1 bill is _STILL_ only worth about a dollar to collectors, even though the Canadian $1 bill has been out of circulation for nearly 20 years. The Royal Canadian Mint only recently (this year) secured the legal rights to the name "Loonie". Prior to this time, its proper name was just the "$1 coin".

The US mint wanted to use coins, it would have saved them about $25 million a year, but nobody liked it. They really should have just forced the issue, like they did in Australia and the UK.

... and Canada. People are the same, everywhere... nobody likes change. But when the issue is forced upon people, they do most certainly adapt to it.

Re:Not that I'm advocating the hole punch method

[Lurker187]

...and so the hole-punching gives you a way to scam the blind based on the old joke "Do you have two tens for a five?"

No, the "marking" will have to be something much harder to fake, so it can't be done casually or quickly.

I'm thinking bumps in the paper; not raised, like Braille, but extra paper pulp pressed into bumps, ridges...actually, the more complex the better. The extra paper will not wear down easily. Maybe even plastic pressed into the paper, like the current plastic strips, but thick enough to cause "speed bumps" on the paper. That might be harder to fake.

Re:Not that I'm advocating the hole punch method

[PixelCat]

Ever heard of the broken windows fallacy? It works like this: someone breaks a store window. The shopkeep comes out, upset, until the glass man comes by and points out that by buying that new window, the shopkeeper is stimulating the economy. Well, that's all true--but the money he spent on the window, he might've used for more supplies, or towards a bigger shop or something, that would've provided a more far-reaching economic benefit.

Every dollar spent replacing perfectly fine cash registers and vending machines is a dollar NOT spent on inventory, salary, expansion, etc.

Re:Not that I'm advocating the hole punch method

[identity0]

Yes, but it's still pretty bad that the bills have basically the same designs except for the portarit and the face in the corner. I know they have new designs for bills now, but they've made it consistent across the different bills again, which does not help things.

You could look at typical playing card designs, which are designed so that it's very hard to mistake one card from another. In addition to the numbers in the corner, the picture in the middle are made very different so you don't have to look closely at a tiny number to distinguish. They are also colored, which is redundant because of the suites, but helps to quickly identify them. In general, having multiple ways of differentiating a card or a bill helps with identification and makes scams using taped-over numbers harder.

I don't see why the U.S. has to lag behind just because "We've always done it this way."