Boll***s to the blind

Victor

Of course the word above is "bollards".

I was in Rathmines this afternoon and an elderly blind man had difficulty negotiating the bollards outside Pizza Hut, even with a cane. The bollards are effectively in the middle of a wide footpath. After crashing into one of the bollards he ended up wandering off in the wrong direction when heading for the pedestrian crossing, potentially with serious effects, given the volume of traffic.

Do any of our blind posters have particular problems with specific types of street furniture? Is any street furniture better at it's job than others? e.g. railings instead of bollards.

Walter Ego

One major cause of distress that I've heard about is motorists who park with two wheels up on the path. They probably think they are helping traffic flow but its murder for the un-sighted.

Amz

A mate who lives on res in DCU was telling me that he finds the increasing volume of construction work taking place throughout the campus and in Dublin city etc a problem when trying to negotiate his way around. Builders putting up barriers, new signs and as mentioned ignorant motorists parking on footpaths... particularly motorcyclists. With all the footpaths being dug up around the place to it can be a nuisance.

Victor

Originally posted by Amz
A mate who lives on res in DCU was telling me that he finds the increasing volume of construction work taking place throughout the campus and in Dublin city etc a problem when trying to negotiate his way around. Builders putting up barriers, new signs and as mentioned ignorant motorists parking on footpaths... particularly motorcyclists. With all the footpaths being dug up around the place to it can be a nuisance.

Would a noise maker like the "bipper" at traffic lights help?

Amz

Not sure to be honest.

herbie747

Originally posted by Victor
Do any of our blind posters have.......

Isn't that a paradox?
No offence to anyone...

herbie747

Really?
Okay, I had no idea. I just presumed that blind people didn't use computers (effeciently anyway) due to the obvious (that they can't see the monitor).
Are the voice programmes accurate? How do they know which parts of the screen to read?
And then how would a blind person know where to click on a link?

Victor

Amz is legally blind (but saw me watching as she flashed her knickers ) - and explains it elsewhere here and quite a few people, especially older ones have visual impairments, short of blindness. There is quite a lot of software out there to help blind people and the internet appears to have been a substantial empowering tool for many.

Walter Ego

On a related topic....

Three cheers for the mobile phone.
Text messages have let the deaf hear and the dumb speak.

Make that four cheers.