Judge orders US banknotes identifiable for the blind: it's about damn time!

[Ediacara]

Judge: Make Bills Recognizable to Blind

By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer

Wednesday, November 29, 2006 05 22 AM

The government discriminates against blind people by printing money that all looks and feels the same, a federal judge said Tuesday in a ruling that could change the face of American currency.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson ordered the Treasury Department to come up with ways for the blind to tell bills apart. He said he wouldn't tell officials how to fix the problem, but he ordered them to begin working on it.

The American Council of the Blind has proposed several options, including printing bills of differing sizes, adding embossed dots or foil to the paper or using raised ink.

"Of the more than 180 countries that issue paper currency, only the United States prints bills that are identical in size and color in all their denominations," Robertson wrote. "More than 100 of the other issuers vary their bills in size according to denomination, and every other issuer includes at least some features that help the visually impaired."

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/11/28/national/w132749S07.DTL

That last statement is not actually correct. In fact, 37 currencies do nothing to aid the blind in identifying different denominations, but the US dollar is the only major currency to do so. All other currencies either have different sizes for different denominations, some sort of raised features, or both.

The red countries have currencies with no aids for the blind, the blue countries have currencies that have some sort of unique raised feature to differentiate between denominations, the yellow countries have currencies that have different sized banknotes to differentiate between denominations, and the green countries have both raised features and differently sized banknotes. Note that national boundaries are obliterated where several adjacent countries use the same currency as is the case for the Euro, West African Franc, Central African Franc, and a few others.

But there the US dollar is, alone among the major currencies in being difficult for the blind, in the same company as Liberia, Zambia, and Turkmenistan. Even the North Korean Won and Malawian Kwacha have features that aid blind identification. Heck, even the currencies of fake countries like Somaliland and Transneistria have features that aid blind identification!

Kudos to Judge James Robertson for this decision!

[MADem]

1. There's a plus to that, beyond being the right thing to do--it's one more hurdle for the

counterfeiters to have to get over...

[Ediacara]

3. Exactly

The government's position that different sizes would aid counterifeiters is hilarious, as 63% of currencies, currencies that are on the whole much harder to counterfeit than the US dollar, have differently sized banknotes. A combination of raised tactile features like those on the late Dutch Gulden, as well as different sizes would be ideal.

The >>> that you can see on the blue horizontal stripes pointed out from the red triangles are actually raised lines making the note instantly identifiable by touch:


The cogs are surrounded by hexagonal patterns of raised bumps:


The white lines seperating the diamond patterns are raised and wavy:

[TlalocW]

2. The Treasury is discriminating against us magicians too.

Nobody realizes how hard it is to do a bill switch with anything over a $1 what with all the different designs they've been putting out recently. I can't take someone's $20 with the eagle watermark, rip off a corner and give it to them, make the rest of the bill disappear in a ball of fire then find it rolled up inside an orange and have it changed into one with the little 20s all over it instead.

TlalocW

[nebula]

4. This is stupid

I cant for the life of me see how a blind person can recognize a bill simply by its size, unless the physical size is radically different between bills.

There is no practical way it can be done!

[Ediacara]

5. A difference of about 1/4 inch is pretty noticeable

Additionally, changing the shape can be helpful. For instance, in Sweden, the 50 kroner is quite square compared to the 20 and 100 kroner notes:

[Warpy]

6. Most of the civilized world manages it very nicely

Look at the map up above and the type of company this country is keeping.

[sandnsea]

7. Perhaps we should let the blind decide

I'm embarrassed we haven't done this 100 years ago. This is so classically American. We were all taught about Helen Keller in school, all responded with the appropriate empathy and admiration for her courage in overcoming the obstacles in her life - what a great American!!! But do we DO anything to make life easier for the blind?? Oh hell no. That would be giving somebody special rights or some such. If Helen Keller can get along, what's wrong with the rest of the blind folks. Gads. We really are a bunch of backwards bumfucks. And we just re-engineered our money and STILL didn't do anything for the blind. We're pathetic.

[Ediacara]

8. Special rights....

I wonder if those people would agree it's special rights if we printed blank money :-)