[Haploid]

Drive-up ATM buttons are marked with braille because federal regulations require it. To be specific, section 4.34.4 of the ADA Accessibility Guidelines for Buildings and Facilities (Appendix to Part 1191, 36 CFR Chapter XI, issued pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990) says, ‘Instructions and all information for use [of an automated teller machine] shall be made accessible to and independently usable by persons with vision impairments.’ Drive-up ATMs, unlike the walk-up variety, don’t need to be wheelchair accessible, but the rules make no exception regarding accessibility by the blind. You’re now thinking: boy, those federal bureaucrats sure are stupid. Don’t they realize a blind person isn’t going to be able to drive to a drive-up ATM? The American Bankers Association, for one, asked that drive-up machines be exempt from the visually-impaired requirement, arguing that a blind person using a drive-up ATM would have to be a passenger and that the driver of the vehicle could help with the transaction. No dice, said the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board, reasoning that driver assistance ‘would not allow the [blind] individual to use the ATM independently.’ This may sound like one of those absurd points of principle, but ATM manufacturers say a fair number of blind people do take cabs to drive-up ATMs, and nobody wants to ask a total stranger to help with a financial transaction.

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Name : Haploid, City : Tulsa, State : OK, Country : United States, 

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