Thoughts on Building the Blind Community and Integration with the Sighted

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Shortly after posting my thoughts on the current state of the blindness assistive technology industry, I received a telephone call from a concerned friend.  He expressed some worry about my assertion that I believed two thirds of the senior management of any blindness assistive technology company needed to be blind or visually impaired.  After thinking about this for awhile and losing some sleep (I really should be in bed at 11:00 at night if I am getting up at 4:30 in the morning) I finally decided to get up and post some hopefully clarifying thoughts on this subject.
 
My friend was worried that I might be taking a FUBU (for us, by us) attitude.  He cited a couple of examples involving the ways in which other minority groups have handled civil rights and other political issues in the past.  There are two possible extremes with which we can choose to handle our role in society as blind people.  
 
On one side, we could choose to deny our blindness as much as possible and fully integrate into the sighted world.  This approach would mean that blindness simply becomes another characteristic, such as hair color or one’s height.  From an assistive technology point of view, all blind people would utilize absolutely the bare minimum amount of assistive technology products to function in the sighted world.  We would still use Braille displays and screen readers, but we would not use specialized note taker or PDA type devices such as the BrailleNote, BrailleSense, Icon or PAC Mate.  Some who lean more in this direction would say these specialized devices represent part of the “blind ghetto” mentality.  Instead, we would all be using Symbian or Windows Mobile based products running screen readers like MobileSpeak Pocket, PocketHal or Talks.  I dare to suspect that we would also do as little agitation for accessibility as possible, choosing instead to accept greater dependence on sighted readers and other less effective work arounds for the sake of getting along with the sighted.  
 
On the opposite extreme, we could choose to stay only within our small blind community, focusing almost exclusively on our blindness as a severe handicap that constantly keeps us down and out.  This approach would tend to portray the blind as victims in constant need of care and pity for their limited, tragic lives.  From an assistive technology viewpoint, focus would be placed on devising specialized, simplified user interfaces blind people could use to accomplish the small number of jobs deemed blind friendly enough to be made accessible.  For those few blind people who even reached the point where a note taker or PDA type device were deemed necessary, products like the BrailleNote and BrailleSense would be the exclusive domain of the blind, with no need for the ability to run any third party software not already built into the product.  Even the Icon and PAC Mate wouldn’t completely meet this pure focus on blindness, since they involve a more direct connection with the device’s underlying operating system and the use of numerous third party programs to perform important tasks.  Taking this extreme, there would also be little need for accessibility evangelism, since we would be sheltered in our own little world, far away from the one in which the sighted live and work.
 
Obviously, neither of these two extremes is desirable for most blind people.  We need to find a middle ground.  I feel it is, indeed, vital that we grow and nurture a strong, healthy blind community.  At the same time, we must live and work with our sighted peers, doing our part to make our own accomodations when it is at all practical and insisting on equal accessibility when that is the only way we can participate on equal terms.  From an assistive technology point of view, we must be granted the ability to choose from a plethora of products and services manufactured by dynamic, innovative companies that listen to our input and turn what we have to say with our dollars and words into even better products and services.  Since I have been using note takers as an example, let’s complete that thread.  Blind people need to be able to choose between a more specialized device like the BrailleNote, a middle of the road solution like the PAC Mate or a device used by the fully sighted such as a Nokia 6682, a Black Jack or other PDA or Smart Phone running the Symbian or Windows Mobile operating system adapted with a screen reader like Talks or MobileSpeak Pocket.  It is conceivable that a blind person might start with a BrailleSense and graduate to a Windows Mobile device once their technical skills have improved. 
 
Our blind community might be said to exist as a kind of nation.  Though we are separate from the sighted in some respects, we must grow, nurture and maintain positive diplomatic relations with our sighted counterparts.  When a seemingly intractible accessibility issue crops up, we may need to occasionally launch initiatives, special operations or maybe even outright war with a very small segment of the sighted population until we can arrive at a satisfactory resolution that fairly meets the needs of all involved parties.  We must never be quick to resort to adversarial means, but we all must be ready, willing and able to insist on the accessibility and reasonable accomodations we must have in order to fully participate in the world around us on terms of equality with the sighted.
 
It is highly likely that well under 10 percent of the sighted population can be said to inherently understand our needs as a diverse blind community.  It is also critical that the decision makers within the companies that provide us with the products and services on which we rely in order to learn, live and work in society understand our needs so they will have the best possible chance of delivering solutions that really meet our needs out here in the real world.  For this reason, I feel it is vital that a majority of a blindness assistive technology company’s senior management and, preferrably, its entire staff be blind or visually impaired.  Please understand that I am saying that a majority should represent our population.  I am not saying that representation must be 100 percent.  There are many examples of sighted people who have made momentus contributions to the blindness assistive technology industry.  Those people should be honored and encouraged by all means to continue their participation with gratitude from the blind community.  Further, more blind and sighted people should be encouraged to develop the necessary aptitudes to create the innovative devices and software we will need for an ever increasingly dynamic technology future.
 
Finally, what I think I am really saying here is, let’s all work cooperatively together as a blind community and in the blindness assistive technology industry to constructively take actions that will result in our increased ability to participate in the sighted world around us!  Pointless litigation between companies in this small industry does not, by any stretch of the imagination, do anything to promote this critical goal. 
 
Darrell Shandrow – Accessibility Evangelist
Visit http://www.SaveSerotek.org and ask Freedom Scientific to stop suing!
Information should be accessible to us without need of translation by another person.

My Thoughts on Altruism Versus Commercialism in the Assistive Technology Industry

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I’m just taking a quick few minutes to pen my (probably oversimplistic) thoughts on the need of companies doing business in the blindness assistive technology industry to balance the benefits and consequences of their actions to the blind community (altruism) versus their need to turn a sufficient profit to make doing business worthwhile to their investors.

  • It is my belief that the initial reasons for creating businesses in this field are altruistic. The people involved in starting the business really want to see blind people succeed using the new company’s technology. There are many reasons for this desire. For instance, maybe one of the company’s founders has a spouse, child or other close relative who happens to be blind or visually impaired. It may also be the case that the company is founded by one or more blind persons who feel they can do better than the current state-of-the-art or a category of assistive technology is needed which currently does not exist. In either case, the initial reasons for getting started are usually grounded in a desire to help the blind.

  • Being businesses, it ultimately becomes important for the company to justify its existence to its creditors, investors, government agencies and especially its blind and visually impaired customers. Doing this means providing a product or service that customers will buy at a price that allows the company to pay its debts, satisfy its investors, pay its employees, continue development and support of existing products and do the R&D required to introduce new products. I recognize that accomplishing all of these important tasks is an incredibly tight balancing line.

  • Who are the customers of our blindness assistive technology industry players? Are they blind and visually impaired consumers? Are they large government agencies, such as Vocational Rehabilitation, that may be required by law to purchase assistive technology? What are the requirements of these different customers? Does the customer need assistive technology that meets their needs to gain access to the world, does the lowest bidder get the nod, is there a contract in place that requires purchase of only certain technologies regardless of the consumers needs or desires? These questions have a huge impact on the actions of the AT companies. Companies that acquire the bulk of their business directly from blind consumers are going to tend to offer payment plans, keep prices low, operate in an extremely efficient, lean manner and provide the highest levels of customer service and support. For these smaller players, blind and visually impaired people are their bread and butter. The positive and negative things blind people say about them on blogs, mailing lists, consumer organization conventions and other forums will tend to have a direct and immediate impact on their behavior toward those customers. Unfortunately, companies who do the bulk of their business with government agencies, large private sector companies or anyone other than blind consumers may tend to develop a different focus. This will naturally involve meeting the agency, company or organizations stated requirements, which will be represented by rather dry factors like price and technical specifications. When these large, high-dollar customers leave out the blind consumer in their own decision-making processes, their purchasing decisions from our blindness AT companies may cause those companies to switch their focus and priorities away from the blind consumer, perhaps without even recognizing that this has happened.

  • Why do smaller companies often tend to be more innovative than the larger players? The smaller companies like Serotek do not have the same level of name recognition within the community of the large high-dollar government agencies and other organizations that purchase the bulk of assistive technology products. Instead, their bread and butter are the blind and visually impaired consumers themselves. As blind people, we have certain accessibility needs, which we would like to have met by one or more of the players in the industry. Different people have different needs. That’s why there is a choice of products. Reasonable people who care about what happens to the blind and visually impaired know intuitively that a one-size-fits-all approach does not work for anyone. So, by nature, the smaller companies who deal more directly with us are going to inherently take more direct actions to meet our stated needs and desires. I think this is just basic business sense between companies and their customers. Unfortunately, this process becomes seriously warped when the customers are anyone other than the people who directly need or want assistive technology products. It seems, over the years, that as an assistive technology company matures and gains that name recognition within the community of its high-dollar customers, the needs and desires of the people for whom the products are designed in the first place go to the wayside, replaced by and large with the legal and dry technical requirements stated by people who are not blind and whom usually have no idea how the technology is used out here in the real world.

  • Why do the larger companies seem to take actions that are viewed as attempts to eliminate the smaller players? Well, obviously, this is a huge, muddy question, but I think it ultimately comes down to money. As a company grows, it needs more resources. Product sales drive the need to hire more employees, acquire larger facilities, gather more investment, take advantage of loans and other credit opportunities and do all the things a business must do in order to meet the customers’ demand for more product. As technology advances, products must be maintained and new products must be devised to meet the evolving needs of customers. While all this goes on, the company must constantly strive to support all its existing customers. Just as it seems to be with individuals, the acquisition of more and more wealth results in the spending of more and more money to expand that success. Things move along rather nicely in most cases so long as the assistive technology company’s customers remain largely from the blind and visually impaired consumer base. But government agencies and other large players have a great deal more money to throw around than the typical blind consumer. The more money a customer is able or willing to spend on something, the more willing the provider is going to be to do all they can to meet that customer’s needs. This is just another one of those unchangeable business constants. Those with the gold ultimately make the rules, whether we like it or not. It isn’t going to be changing anytime in the near or even distant future. This has a lot of implications. Innovation costs money and other resources and “necessity is the mother of all invention”. It seems like the larger players in our industry are innovating only when it is deemed necessary by their high-dollar customers, rather than by blind and visually impaired consumers who may need innovative technologies in order to educate themselves, obtain or retain their employment, live their daily lives, etc. For instance, why does it seem that one company appears to have fallen behind the curve with respect to Windows Vista and now seems to be struggling to catch up to other players in some areas? Most large businesses and government agencies wait at least a year before implementing a new operating system. Did this company feel they had more time before they had to innovate, in order to spare the expenditure of resources until it came time to meet the needs of their high-dollar customers? Did it jump because it was surprised when some of those large customers said they were moving to Vista sooner than expected? Did the smaller players decide to innovate faster and take Vista more seriously because some of their blind customers said they needed access to that operating system to keep their jobs or just because they wanted to buy a new computer that no longer offers support for Windows XP? Was all of this just too much? Did they decide to start filing lawsuits, make threats and do other underhanded things to some of the blind community consumer activists and smaller players in the field to allow them some time to catch up and hold onto that coveted big business?

  • Why litigate rather than innovate? Why is there a lawsuit over an aledged trademark violation that has been happening for almost seven years? I’ll say just this much on this direct subject. There are a lot of questions coming from all over the blind community as to Freedom Scientific’s supposed motives for filing this lawsuit. I’ll just state what I believe to be a foregone conclusion should Freedom Scientific win all it requests in the case. If the case goes to trial and Freedom Scientific wins, then Serotek will no longer be a going concern. It is that simple. Whether intended or not, an important player will have been unceremoniously deleted from the field. It is just that simple, boys and girls!

  • Why do we as a blind community have so little impact on not only the mainstream world around us but also the assistive technology industry? I’m afraid the reasons for that are simple as well. We have at least a 70 percent unemployment rate. While a lot of discrimination and misunderstanding do exist on the part of employers, I strongly believe that much of the problem is simply that most blind and visually impaired people make the choice to take their Social Security checks, public housing and other government-provided welfare benefits and sit home. They aren’t getting an education, volunteering or even trying to acquire gainful employment. I played the TLC song “No Scrub” on my show on ACB Radio Interactive the other night for a reason! If most of us are just subsisting, then we don’t have enough money to spend in order to significantly impact the business decisions made by our assistive technology companies, let alone insist that mainstream technology companies make their products and services more accessible to us.

  • Why does it seem the two largest blindness consumer organizations in the United States are hesitant to weigh in on the Freedom Scientific Versus Serotek case? I’m afraid I must come to the conclusion that this organizational paralysis simply has just about everything to do with the fact that Freedom Scientific donates sizable sums of money to these organizations, whose leadership can’t be blamed for not wanting to bite the hand that feeds them.

As you can obviously see by now, this article has become something of a stream of consciousness on my part concerning my thoughts on the assistive technology industry for the blind and visually impaired. I do believe I have one idea that could start us on a path to a rebirth of the blindness assistive technology industry in a way that would meet the needs of all the small and large companies as well as blind and visually impaired consumers. This is going to be controversial, but here it comes anyway. Have I ever shied away from controversy on this blog or otherwise in the blind community? The idea is simply this: Two thirds of the senior management of all companies doing business in the blindness assistive technology industry should meet the definition of legal blindness and of course should be otherwise qualified to hold their positions. These management teams should also equitably represent the full spectrum of legal blindness from highly partially sighted to totally blind. It is my long held belief that only competent blind and visually impaired people from our community can correctly assess our needs and take positive actions that really benefit the blind and visually impaired. As always, your comments are highly encouraged.

Coming up on Main Menu and Main Menu Live for the week of May 30

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This week on Main Menu, Rick Harmon from the Blind Geek Zone web site reviews the use of welcome center, ease of access center, media center, backup and restore center and speech recognition  on Windows Vista with JAWS for Windows Public Beta 2.

During the second hour of Main Menu Live, we hear an AccessWatch review of TypeAbility version 2.1.1. After that, it is all open phones with our panel of blind technology experts: Jeff Bishop, Darrell Shandrow, Don Barrett, Randy Knapp and Rick Harmon. Feel free to call into the show or send a MSN / Windows Live Message about any topic related to technology from a blindness perspective.

The number to call into the show is 866-400-5333. You can email your questions to mainmenu@acbradio.org. You may also interact with the show via MSN Messenger. The MSN Messenger ID to add is mainmenu@acbradio.org.

Would you like to interact with a group of Main Menu listeners about the topics heard on Main Menu and Main Menu Live? You can do this by joining the Main Menu Friends email list. The address to subscribe is main-menu-subscribe@googlegroups.com. Come join an already lively group of users.

Would you like to subscribe to podcast feeds for Main Menu and Main Menu Live? The RSS feeds to add to your podcatching application are:

Main Menu – http://www.acbradio.org/podcasts/mainmenu

Main Menu Live – http://www.acbradio.org/podcasts/mainmenulive

Main Menu and Main Menu Live can be heard on Tuesday evenings at 9:00 Eastern, 6:00 Pacific, and at 1 universal on Wednesday mornings on the ACB Radio Main Stream channel. To listen to the show, just click this link: http://www.acbradio.org/pweb/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=8&MMN_position=14:14

Jeff Bishop and Darrell Shandrow

The Main Menu Production Team

The Need for Multiple Screen Readers

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This is another amazing article from Blind Christian. He writes about much more than the need for many of us to run multiple screen readers on our systems. The concept of a blind person being fired over technology inaccessibility remains more than repugnant to me, and I would absolutely love to learn more about the situation mentioned in the article.

Milestone in the Save Net Radio campaign

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US Net Radio legislation crosses the hundred member mark
May 27th, 2007 – 11:45 UTC

A bill that would save the Internet radio industry from a dramatic increase
of fees webcasters pay to play music has gained the support of its 100th
member of the US House of Representatives. Introduced by Representatives Jay
Inslee (D-WA) and Donald Manzullo (R-IL), the Internet Radio Equality Act
(H.R. 2060) would vacate the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) decision that
increased the royalty rates by 300-1200 percent over the next five years.

"Members of Congress are hearing loudly and clearly the passionate voices of
webcasters, music fans and artists who have marched on Capitol Hill with
their feet, their calls and their letters. Reaching 100 cosponsors in three
legislative weeks is extraordinary, and is a major milestone for tens of
thousands of webcasters, millions of Internet Radio listeners, and thousands
of artists invested in the future of Internet radio," Jake Ward, a
spokesperson for SaveNetRadio said. SaveNetRadio is a national coalition
comprised of hundreds of thousands of webcasters, artists, listeners and
labels from throughout the country committed to preserving the future of
Internet radio.

Legislation currently before Congress, H.R. 2060 and S. 1353 – the Internet
Radio Equality Act – would vacate the Copyright Royalty Board's decision and
set a 2006-2010 royalty rate at the same level currently paid by satellite
radio services (7.5% of revenue.) The bill would also change the royalty
rate-setting standard used in royalty arbitrations, so that the standard
applied to webcasters would align with that applied to satellite radio.

For more information on the SaveNetRadio coalition, visit:
http://www.savenetradio.org

Memorial Day and the Concept of Accessibility

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Today is Monday, May 28, when we observe Memorial Day here in the United States of America.  On the last Monday of May each year, we honor those in the military, first responders and others who have given their lives in service to their country.  These men and women are American heros who have paid the ultimate price to preserve our way of life.  This American way of life has evolved to include the right to equal and full participation in society by all citizens, including minorities, women and people with disabilities.  By promoting the American way and combatting terrorism and tyranny here in the U.S. and around the world, our American heros deserve much more than just one day of cook outs, parties and picnics.  As we all work or celebrate the unofficial beginning of summer today, let’s also take some time to remember those brave seouls who died on 9/11, in Afghanistan and Iraq, right here in the United States and elsewhere.  Not only should we remember those who have died, but we should keep those who are serving our nation right now around the world in our thoughts and prayers.  In a sense, all these people who continue to press on in support of the American Way may be, whether or not they realize it, indirectly considered evangelists for the equal rights and full participation we deserve as blind and visually impaired American citizens!

Visual Verification: ReCAPTCHA System Improves Internet Security and Book Searchability

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It sure would have been nice if the Carnegie Mellon University folks
would've thought about accessibility when they invented CAPTCHA in the first
place, or, at least, those who probably placed Federal and other funds into
the work leading to the invention. I'm just glad that audio CAPTCHA is
going to be a part of this new project. Of course, as we know, audio is
ultimately insufficient and a better way to secure resources must be
devised.

CCN Magazine, Canada
Sunday, May 27, 2007

ReCAPTCHA System Improves Internet Security and Book Searchability

2007-05-27 13:04:35

A Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist is enlisting the unwitting
help of thousands, if not millions, of Web users each day to eliminate a
technical bottleneck that has slowed efforts to transform books, newspapers
and other printed materials into digitized text that is computer searchable.
Luis von Ahn, an assistant professor of computer science and recipient of a
MacArthur Foundation "genius grant," says the project will also improve Web
security systems used to reduce spam and make it possible for individuals to
safeguard their own email addresses from spammers.

Key to the new project is assigning a new, dual use to existing technology:
CAPTCHAs, the distorted-letter tests found at the bottom of registration
forms on Yahoo, Hotmail, PayPal, Wikipedia and hundreds of other sites
worldwide. CAPTCHAs, an acronym for Completely Automated Public Turing Test
to Tell Computers and Humans Apart, distinguish between legitimate human
users and malevolent computer programs designed by spammers to harvest
thousands of free email accounts. The tests require users to type the
distorted letters they see inside a box – a task that is difficult for
computers, but easy for humans.

Working with a team that includes computer science professor Manuel Blum,
undergraduate student Ben Maurer and research programmer Mike Crawford, von
Ahn invented a new version of the tests, called reCAPTCHAs, that will help
convert printed text into computer-readable letters on behalf of the
Internet Archive. The San Francisco-based non-profit group administers the
Open Content Alliance and is one of several large initiatives working to
digitize books and other printed materials under open principles, making the
text searchable by computer and capable of being reformatted for new uses.

Optical character recognition (OCR) systems that automatically perform this
conversion are often stumped by underlined text, scribbles and fuzzy or
otherwise poorly printed letters. ReCAPTCHAs will use words from these
troublesome passages to replace the artificially distorted letters and
numbers typically used in CAPTCHAs.

The new tests continue to distinguish between humans and machines because
they use text that OCR systems have already failed to read. And because
people must decipher these words to pass the reCAPTCHA test, they will help
complete the expensive digitization process.

"I think it's a brilliant idea – using the Internet to correct OCR
mistakes," said Brewster Kahle, director of the Internet Archive. ReCAPTCHAs
will speed the digitization process while also helping to improve OCR
methods and perhaps extend them to additional languages, he said. "This is
an example of why having open collections in the public domain is
important," he added. "People are working together to build a good, open
system." Von Ahn hopes to substitute his reCAPTCHAs for as many conventional
CAPTCHAs as possible. "It is estimated that 60 million or more CAPTCHAs are
solved each day, with each test taking about 10 seconds," he said. "That's
more than 150,000 precious hours of human work that are lost each day, but
that we can put to good use with reCAPTCHAs."

With support from Intel Corp., von Ahn's team has devised a free, Web-based
service that allows individual webmasters to install reCAPTCHAs to protect
their sites. Individuals can also use the service to protect their own email
addresses, or lists of addresses they post on personal Web pages. In the
case of some commercial Web sites with heavy traffic, reCAPTCHA may charge a
fee to pay for additional bandwidth.

To make certain that people are correctly deciphering the printed text, the
reCAPTCHA system will require Web site visitors to type two words, one of
which the system already knows. Each unknown word will be submitted to
multiple visitors. If the visitor types the known word correctly, the system
has greater confidence that the unknown word is being typed correctly. If
several visitors type the same answer for the unknown word, that answer will
be assumed to be correct.

An audio version of reCAPTCHA, which will transcribe portions of radio
programs that have defied speech recognition programs, will also be
available for blind Web users.

http://www.ccnmag.com/news.php?id=5301

Freedom Scientific Needs to Focus on Innovation and JAWS Stability Rather Than Litigation!

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I am sitting here doing some day job work on this Memorial Day weekend.  I agreed to do this in exchange for yesterday and two days off later in the week.  Despite this arrangement, I am now quite angry!  The anger is, of course, not at all related to my agreement to work today, but, rather, it is being provoked by some rather unstable behavior on the part of JAWS, the screen reader upon which I still rely most of the time while performing the duties of my job.
 
About half an hour ago now, JAWS suddenly stopped talking for no apparent reason while opening a work related web site!  It just went totally silent!  From time to time, this also happens to Karen in various applications, and I hear about similar JAWS instability from many others in the blind community.  Nowadays, when this happens, I run another screen reader like Nonvisual Desktop Access, System Access or Window-Eyes.  This time, NVDA informed me that there was an “application error” with JAWS.  Pressing enter on the OK button resulted in an error with FSBraille.  Hmm, interesting, as at this time I do not have a Braille display connected or selected for use in JAWS at all.  Even worse, I am unable to restart JAWS.  The same error appears every single time!  I would need to reboot my system in order to get JAWS back!  Since I am currently recording Kim’s show on ACB Radio Interactive so that Karen may listen to it later, rebooting is currently unacceptable.  Instead, it is Window-Eyes to the rescue!  Fortunately, I don’t need to spend a great deal of time in the knowledge base application today, so this will work fine.  I just thank God I have four different screen readers on my computer!
 
There is a point to all of this…  While JAWS remains the overall leader in screen reading for the blind, other technologies are quickly catching up with Freedom Scientific and several are now surpassing JAWS in stability.  Though Nonvisual Desktop Access, Serotek System Access and Window-Eyes still lack scripting and much of the flexibility offered by JAWS, they do all have one significant advantage; they virtually never stop talking! 
 
I hope Freedom Scientific’s competitors are reading this post and the sentiments of many others in the blind community.  Give us expanded configurability and scripting support!  If I can configure System Access or Window-Eyes to do all the things JAWS currently allows, then I can use them on the job to replace JAWS, and, at least for me, JAWS will no longer stand for Job Access With Speech!  It is my opinion as an advanced assistive technology and computer user that JAWS is a defective product in need of significant overhaul to improve its stability!  There you have it, my friends.  I wonder how much trouble I’m going to find for myself by making this post.  As always, please, feel free to comment to your heart’s content.

Silent threat

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The Columbian, WA, USA
Friday, May 25, 2007

Silent threat

By BRETT OPPEGAARD, staff writer

Caption: Nick Wilks, a student at Washington State School for the Blind, has
nearly been hit twice in recent months at this intersection of East Reserve
Street and East McLoughlin Boulevard. He has to make the crossing to reach
his classes at Hudson's Bay High School. (TROY WAYRYNEN/The Columbian)

Caption: Nick Wilks, student body president at the state's school for the
blind, says hybrid cars traveling at low speeds can be nearly undetectable
to blind pedestrians. (TROY WAYRYNEN/The Columbian)

Each weekday morning, Nick Wilks crosses just one street. That's how the
17-year-old gets from his dorm room at Washington State School for the Blind
to classes at Hudson's Bay High School.

The intersection of East Reserve Street and East McLoughlin Boulevard is
quiet most of the time. But about 10:35 a.m., when Wilks is on his way back,
it's an obstacle course. Parking lots at nearby Clark College are filling.
Young drivers on lunch break from Hudson's Bay are often whipping through
that intersection from all directions. Wilks has almost been hit by cars
there twice this school year.

What's saved him? Hearing the uncomfortably close chugs of combustion
engines.

Yet what if cars were silent? That sounds like a futuristic dream, a
pleasing idea to those irritated by contemporary noise pollution. But it's a
frightening prospect to those, such as Wilks, who rely on sounds to survive.

Hybrid vehicles not only are emitting less toxins in the air and consuming
fuel more efficiently, but they are reducing ambient clatter. A Toyota Prius
running on its electric motor, which it typically does at low speeds, is
virtually silent.

The National Federation of the Blind has been voicing concerns about the
unintended side effect of that silence since shortly after Toyota introduced
the Prius, the first mass-produced hybrid, in 2000. The group says these
quiet cars are a hazard not only to blind people but also to anyone who
needs sounds for safety, including children, the elderly and bicyclists.

"If cars don't make noise, blind people can't safely navigate streets. ?
This really is a problem," said John Paré, the National Federation of the
Blind's director of public relations.

A blind woman in California recently reported having her foot run over by a
Prius. She commented that she didn't even know the car was there before it
hit her. Several other blind people have described minor injuries or near
misses to the National Federation of the Blind, though the organization
hasn't kept detailed records of the complaints. The group forecasts even
worse accidents ahead, as the cars become more prevalent, unless automakers
develop some sort of noisemaker for these vehicles.

Hybrids have become a growing trend in American cars. There now are about
400,000 of them on U.S. roads, according to market researchers R.L. Polk &
Co. New registrations doubled from 2004 to 2005, the most recent data
available.

No pedestrian death has been linked to these cars. But, National Federation
of the Blind representatives note, there is no tracking mechanism, either.

Representatives for the two most prominent producers of hybrid cars, Toyota
and Honda, say they are aware of the sound concerns and are considering
options.

Aerospace materials engineer David Evans, who tested hybrid and electric
vehicles at Stanford University in the 1970s, has been lecturing on this
topic, including speaking to the National Federation of the Blind. He says
early developers of the technology quickly learned that pedestrians couldn't
hear the cars and his group used whistles to solve the problem.

But carmakers are hesitant to add noise to the environment, and to incur
that expense, said Denise Morrissey, a spokeswoman for Toyota Motor Sales
USA.

"The (industry) trend is toward quiet powertrains in all sorts of vehicles,"
she said. "That trend has raised the need for other drivers and pedestrians
to increase caution and to be more aware of the surroundings."

Honda spokesman Sage Marie says this topic is a broad manufacturer's
concern, not something that each company should be pursuing individually. He
says the solution invariably will come through a collaboration among
government regulators from the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, concerned groups such as the National Federation of the
Blind, and the industry's trade associations, including the Association of
International Automobile Manufacturers.

Michael Cammisa, director of safety for that auto trade group, did not
return multiple telephone calls requesting an interview for this story.

Stein of the National Federation of the Blind and others already have begun
lobbying the Society of Automotive Engineers to develop protocols for
minimum sound levels for vehicles sold in the U.S.

Stein said her group is proactively navigating the bureaucracy before
someone gets killed or seriously injured in an accident that could have been
prevented.

In the meantime, blind pedestrians feel vulnerable.

Wilks, the Washington State School for the Blind's student body president,
said sound signals are particularly important to alert pedestrians to cars
making right turns across walkways.

Wilks was in the crosswalk between his schools a few months ago when two
cars, both turning right, pinned him in the middle. In another incident, in
January, he was about to step into the crosswalk when a driver decided to
speed up and make a right turn directly in front of him.

"That was really scary," he said. "I was just a couple of feet from the
car."

Both times, he said, the sounds of the combustion engines helped him to
avoid injury.

The National Federation of the Blind has become concerned enough about this
perceived threat that it conducted an experiment this year at its annual
conference. About 30 blind or visually impaired members waited at an
intersection in front of the group's headquarters in Baltimore and were
asked to signal when they could hear a car approach. A Prius went by
undetected. They repeated the experiment in a quiet alley. The Prius that
time could be heard, but only at about 15 feet away.

Stein said, "I was aware, in the abstract, that we were going to have
electric cars that are very quiet, and something would have to be done to
make those pedestrian-friendly. Then, all of sudden these things were out on
the road, and nothing had been done."

Stein said the National Federation of the Blind supports hybrid cars and
their benefits. But the group also wants to ensure they are safe for
pedestrians.

The organization is pitching for a device that makes the usual engine noise:
"We want something that's not going to be irritating to people. We're hoping
for a low-tech, inexpensive solution that can be an automatic add-on."

The Washington State School for the Blind, meanwhile, has a dilemma. As a
state agency, its staff reports directly to an office in Olympia. That means
four or five road trips a week from the Vancouver school, plus the 300 to
600 miles a week that teachers drive to serve students throughout the state.
The staff makes those trips in a fleet of four hybrid vehicles.

Principal Craig Meador acknowledges the irony. "I kind of look at it this
way: The technology is here, whether we like it or not," he said. "The issue
isn't so much that we are doing a good job with our gas mileage as, are we
supporting something that can be a danger and sometimes lethal to the blind
community? That concerns us."

He added, "We're probably going to see more of these kinds of things on the
market. We need to teach (blind students) to operate safely around these
cars, rather than to bury our head in the sand." For a video clip of
Washington State School for the Blind student Nick Wilks making his trek to
Hudson's Bay High School, see

LINK:
www.columbian.com/video

The debate

Should quiet hybrid cars have noisemakers added to them, as a way to alert
nearby pedestrians?

– On one side:
If that sound will save lives, then why not find an inoffensive tone for
these cars to emit?

– On another side:
Our lives are polluted enough with noise. Encourage people to cross streets
more carefully and drivers to slow near crosswalks.

– Get involved:
The National Federation of the Blind can be reached through nfb.org .

http://www.columbian.com/lifeHome/lifeHomeNews/05252007news144737.cfm