Kay Burrows
|
October 20, 2002 |
My name is Mary Kathryn Burrows, I go by Kay and I live at [ ... ] in Seattle
Washington. As a person who is transistioning into blindness and who is just
learning my skills I find the noise from the various signals hides the sound of
traffic and makes crossing for the most part more difficult. The only true thing
it tells me is that the light has changed. In no way does it tell me if I am
safe crossing the street. One of my closest calls came when I was first exposed
to the noisey things and I trusted it was safe to cross, but what it didn't tell
me was that two cars and a Metro bus had all run a red light. That was one quick
lesson to me that the signals were not creating safety, but lulling me into the
bad habit of not trusting or using my ears to tell me when it is safe to walk.
Blind people have been crossing streets for years without these so called
helpers. When I hear a cuckoo telling me to cross I find it insulting as I grew
up hearing cuckoo to be a uphanism for crazy. I am not going crazy or more
foolish, I am going blind. I would perhaps be crazy to rely on the audible
signal instead of listening to traffic. These devises are very expensive and if
placed on every corner would not only prevent tax dollars from being spent on
more deserving projects, but could be so noisy that the sighted public would
begin to think of the blind as an incompetent nuisance incapable of taking care
of themselves. We battle enough ignorance about our abilities and capabilities
without it costing millions and millions to tax payers to add to the level of
noise pollution in our communities with chirps beeps cuckoos and other unnatural
noise.
Sincerely,
Kay Burrows
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