Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act: Thoughts from a Blind Consumer

By DAVID FAUCHEUX

I've just received an email from AFB about a proposed law that will would make things better for blind cell phone users and may make TV more accessible by both adding video description and accessible onscreen menus. 

I do not have a cell phone yet; I'm probably one of the last people on earth to not have a cell phone.  A telephonic dinosaur.  I do not have one because I am both worried about the effects of radiation despite assurances that it won't hurt my brain and I am a little intimidated by learning yet another piece of technology that may not be fully blind friendly.

Making a telephone speak menus helps to make it accessible but if all the layers or levels of software do not speak, my accessibility is only skin deep.  (Like Braille on a drive thru banking window--me drive!)  I know I'll get a phone within the next several years. 

I was pleased to learn that they are again trying to make video description fly on television.  They tried it several years back but it flopped.  I simply can't understand why producers find this such a hardship.  I rarely watch TV now because it's too confusing for me.  I don't want to work that hard to sit in front of the idiot box and veg out.  I sadly lack sufficient genius to decode all the sounds made by various people, devices, and animals and to instantly recognize any voice I hear and store it in my brain.  I want to know what people look like, wear, what physical actionhappens on a show, and then some!  I'm really letting down the blind brotherhood by such an admission. 

The sighted world will think I am an incompetent since they all know a blind person who can tell you what denomination any piece of paper money given to them is by feel; who can cross streets anywhere in the world listening to the traffic going any direction, turning on right or even when a quiet hybrid car happens by; who can hear the sounds of walls and other building structures and instantly map out a cartography of sound and travel anywhere and even go skating while never bumping into anyone because of facial vision; who can read Braille at 500 words per minute; who can use a slate and stylus to produce 100 words a minute in Grade 3 Braille while taking college notes; and who plans to become a medical or naturopathic doctor/tax lawyer/mountain climer/Olympic medalist/actor/singer/inventor/millionaire/model/world solo traveler/Nobel Laureate/politician/chef/humanitarian/minister/professor all before age 30!  Yawn.

IMAGINE That!