[blindlaw] American currency and other accessibility issues.

[Rod Alcidonis]

Joe, Dave's argument is that by changing the currency, the businesses will
need to also alter their vending machines, etc etc etc, and that they will
be mad at us. When we sue them to change their ATMS, aren't we suing private
businesses to alter their machines? I don't really see the difference
between us suing a company to change their ATMS, and the court telling the
government to change the currency, which would ultimately compel the
companies to change their vending machines. I also wonder which is a more
expensive thing to do? Changing ATMS or vending machines.

Are we just afraid that the government won't do things for us in the future?
Or do we simply prefer to litigate when the government is not in the case.

My understanding of the issue is that if I go out tomorrow and sue a store
to change its vending machine because it is not accessible, it would be the
same exact thing, if I had gone out and sued Bank of America to make its
ATMS more accessible. The only difference with the currency issue is that
the order is directed to the government, and the government will need to get
these businesses to do what otherwise a law suit would have achieved when
they ultimately comply with the order, which they must do.

Rod 
From: blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf of Joe Orozco
Sent: Sunday, December 03, 2006 11:52 PM
To: NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List
Subject: Re: [blindlaw] American currency and other accessibility issues.

    Come now Rod.  I appreciate the ironic comparison, but asking businesses

to make their ATM machines accessible affects only one sector of the 
industry.  It does not welcome the spillover effect of changing our 
currency.  If I had to prioritize between pushing for ATM accessibility and 
currency modifications, I would totally buy into the ATM advocacy regardless

of which organization made the push, because while there may be isolated 
incidents of people getting short changed in cash, people would have more 
personal information and more assets to lose by asking strangers to assist 
with withdrawing from the bank.  Has the ACB made such an advocacy?  I 
honestly don't know, but if it has not, I see it as an example of the more 
ground breaking position the organization could have taken.  If it has, I 
think our own side needs to join in the noise to get something changed. 
Anyway, just my thoughts.

          Joe Orozco

"The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle."--Military 
Basic Training
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rod Alcidonis" <roddj12 at hotmail.com>
To: "'NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List'" <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 03, 2006 11:27 PM
Subject: Re: [blindlaw] American currency and other accessibility issues.


> Joe, this would be against our policy, you have to adapt around the
> inaccessible machines and be miserable, they shouldn't be made accessible 
> to
> you buddy. You are asking the world for too much!
>
> Rod
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of Joshua E. Saunders
> Sent: Sunday, December 03, 2006 8:24 PM
> To: blindlaw at nfbnet.org
> Subject: [blindlaw] American currency and other accessibility issues.
>
> I have been listening to the debate on both sides of the issue, with 
> regards
> to currency accessibility.  The Federation has a point in that there could
> be a backlash if the public comes to resent blind people for demanding too
> many accommodations.  At the same time I don't think we should simply make
> the assumption that that is the attitude most cited people will have. 
> Cited
> people who I've talked to have seen it as a positive thing.  It's possible
> that because I am blind they feel like they have to respond in this way. 
> I
> haven't gotten any sense of deceptiveness in people's responses however.
>
>
>
> Since we have been talking about accessibility issues I wanted to raise 
> one
> which I have been thinking about.  Touch screens are ubiquitous parts of 
> the
> ATM machines at supermarkets.  There also present as a part of many other
> common machines such as the automatic ticket machines for Amtra I found
> myself in a very uncomfortable situation when I had to hand my credit card
> to a total stranger in order to have my previously purchased ticket
> extracted from the machine.  Now I simply do not by my tickets in advance,
> so that I don't have to use the machine.  k.  I wanted people 's thoughts 
> on
> whether we should work to have this technology made more accessible.  To 
> me
> it seems just as important as making web sites accessible, because of how
> common the technology has become.,
>
>
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