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You know you are getting old when:

Law should follow up & require this on their vehicles.


Perhaps a seeing eye dog might help :p

Your jokes aside, just because someone is blind doesn't mean they never leave the house. They go out and do "normal" things regularly, including the same types of errands the rest of us do, dining out, shopping, going to the bank etc, even if they don't drive.
 
Your jokes aside, just because someone is blind doesn't mean they never leave the house. They go out and do "normal" things regularly, including the same types of errands the rest of us do, dining out, shopping, going to the bank etc, even if they don't drive.


Do you not understand the oxymoronic idea of having a Braille machine in an area specifacally designed to service people picking up their food in a car?! That is just stupid and a waste of money as no one is going to actually use it as intended. :rolleyes:
 
Do you not understand the oxymoronic idea of having a Braille machine in an area specifacally designed to service people picking up their food in a car?! That is just stupid and a waste of money as no one is going to actually use it as intended. :rolleyes:

Do you not understand that while blind people don't drive, they *do* ride in cars, cabs, etc, and *do* pick up food, use the ATM, etc? Do you not understand that blind people use these services all the time?
 
Do you not understand that while blind people don't drive, they *do* ride in cars, cabs, etc, and *do* pick up food, use the ATM, etc? Do you not understand that blind people use these services all the time?

They ride in cars in on the driver's side? It would seem quite an imposition to get out and go around or have to slide across the seat and open the door.
 
They ride in cars in on the driver's side? It would seem quite an imposition to get out and go around or have to slide across the seat and open the door.

Most everything is an imposition when you're blind. That doesn't mean you curl up in a ball and never leave your house. And yes, they slide over to the driver's side when using a drive through.
 
No one said any such thing. I am done with this as it is clear that you have some agenda in mind.....

I explained why drive through ATMs have Braille...that federal law requires it because visually impaired people use them. You called that stupid and a waste of money, unwilling to recognize that blind people ride in cars all the time and do many of the everyday things sighted people do, and that includes using drive through facilities. I have no agenda other than to explain that Braille at the ATM should not be a particularly bizarre idea.
 

sheeplady

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Um, are we forgetting the backseat? On the driver's side?

I'm not going to get upset about what probably amounts to a few cents (if that) cost on a product. If banks are that concerned about that minutia of their bottom line, they should have paid more attention to what their loan officers were doing pre-2008. That cost them a lot more than Braille ever will or ever would.
 

Stanley Doble

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It would probably cost MORE to make special machines WITHOUT braille just for drive thrus, now that every other machine has braille.

To make the keys with braille on them must cost less than a penny extra per key. It would cost more than that to have someone file them off.
 

Stearmen

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It would probably cost MORE to make special machines WITHOUT braille just for drive thrus, now that every other machine has braille.

To make the keys with braille on them must cost less than a penny extra per key. It would cost more than that to have someone file them off.

I think you make a good point Stanley! ATM machines of course are usually a walk up affair, so any one can use it. I have never seen a braille drive through menu at a fast food restaurant. Then again, I always walk in, so don't go by me.
 

Dennis Young

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There are thousands of jokes on the internet about this, like your back goes out more times than you do, but do you have any anecdotes that have made you walk away thinking: "I must be getting old?"

For me, I knew I was getting old when I was chatting up a girl and she called me ‘Sir’.
lol
 

GHT

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I have no agenda other than to explain that Braille at the ATM should not be a particularly bizarre idea.

From an outsider's perspective, it comes across as ludicrous to put braille on the keys of ATM machines at drive by. Reason being, if you really want to help the visually impaired, do something with the dollar. It doesn't matter if it's a single dollar note or a thousand one, the only way of telling is to 'see' the figure in the corner.

A lady in Chattanooga, working in an ice cream retail shop, on hearing my English accent, was curious to know if there was a portrait of the Queen on our banknotes. I happened to have all four in my wallet. A five, ten, twenty and fifty. She was amazed that they were all slightly different in size and colour. In addition, each note has a slightly raised symbol with an encrypted figure denoting the value. Those symbols are different on each note.

She commented on the difference between each note, I explained that it helped the visually impaired and it also went some way to deterring forgeries. She thought it would be useful if the dollar was similar, but conceded that after two centuries, it would hardly be likely.

I didn't say it to the lady, but for centuries, The Pound was twelve pence equals one shilling, twenty shillings equals one pound. Therefore there was two hundred and forty pennies to the pound. In 1971 all that was consigned to history when our currency went metric, that is one hundred pennies equals one pound, and the shilling was no more. So if we can do it..........
For what it's worth, I've never come across a braille embossed ATM here in the UK. The keys on the machines are set out in such a way that the visually impaired know which key denotes what.

I do hope that I haven't incited 1776 all over again.
 
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From an outsider's perspective, it comes across as ludicrous to put braille on the keys of ATM machines at drive by...
I do hope that I haven't incited 1776 all over again.

You haven't incited revolution, but I'm gobsmacked (that's a good British word, isn't it?) that people still refuse to acknowledge that blind people ride in cars and use ATMs.

As for telling bills apart, it's difficult on US money. Blind folks typically fold the various denominations differently so they know which ones they're giving a merchant, but that depends on the honesty of someone else in the first place. Coins, of course, are different sizes and easy to tell apart.

US currency has long been considered behind the times in terms of visually impaired friendly and counterfeit resistant. We've changed up the look somewhat, adding various graphics, colors and security features, but there hasn't been a substantial change in size in a while. As for the denominations, we've always been basically on the metric system for money, which is odd considering we stubbornly insist on the bizarre old British system for everything else. And on a side note, while we often refer to a "penny", the US doesn't, and never has, produced a penny. It's a "cent". But goes to show how British we still are deep down.
 
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LizzieMaine

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There was some messing around in the 1780s with an idea which would have instituted the "bit" as the basic monetary unit in the US, with multiples at various levels to be called the "quint" -- 500 bits -- and the "mark," or 1000 bits.

Pounds, shillings, and pence continued in common use in parts of New England well into the 19th Century. We're nothing here if not hidebound about certain things.
 

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