[msb-alumni] James Alan Fox: Airports Can Be So Blind

  • From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 16:12:03 -0400

BlankI've seen several of his editorials on criminology.


Airports can be so blind By James Alan Fox

If you are able to read these words under the overhead light on your morning
flight without having to squint or use a magnifier, then this column is not
about you. Continue on, nonetheless, as this has everything to do with you and
the overwhelming majority of folks who are uninformed about the plight of the
visually impaired.

By way of establishing my credentials on this matter, I was recently certified
as "legally blind" (and apparently no longer merely "illegally blind"). I do
have some vision, but below the legislatively determined threshold that
qualifies me for special services and accommodation.

By virtue of my new status, I receive wonderful assistance from the
Massachusetts Commission for the Blind in terms of mobility training and
low-vision devices. I also qualify for certain government benefits, including
an excise tax exemption on the car I cannot drive, an irony that always
mystifies my friends.

Fliers like me

Despite the help, I still struggle in a world that is itself blind and ignorant
to vision impairment unless it comes with dark glasses and a Seeing Eye dog.
And nowhere is it any more frustrating than with air travel, and I don't just
mean that useless in-flight reading light.

Why, for example, do airport monitors need to be hung so high? I constantly
have to stop strangers to ask whether the Boston flight has had a gate change
and is on time.

The crowded terminals are especially treacherous. I can't tell you how many
roller bags I've tripped over. I have a choice: Look down to avoid these
wheeled obstacles and bump into people head-on, or look up where I'm going and
hope not to cross paths with low-lying luggage.

I do use a white cane, which is supposed to alert others to my limitations. But
with so many people fixated on their mobile phones as they walk, several of my
canes have been stepped on and broken by oblivious travelers. At least then I
get to say with justified indignation, "Are you blind? Maybe you need this cane
more than me.

I used to depend on airline personnel at the ticket counter to handle check-in
for me. But now I am directed to the electronic kiosks for self-service seat
assignment and to print my boarding pass. Frankly, these screens are not all
that easy to see, but they at least have freed up the ticket agents to stand
around and look on with puzzlement and sometimes amusement as I bend over in an
attempt to read the screen.

And there is absolutely no blind justice at airport food courts. Forget about
being able to read the menus placed high up on the walls behind the fast-food
counters. It is demeaning and embarrassing to ask some uninterested teenage
cashier to read off the breakfast selections while a line of hungry and
impatient travelers grows behind me. I usually end up with a hasty choice and
later realize that I could have had a V8.

See the absurdity

With time to spare at the terminal, I seek out the tiny large-print section in
the bookstores. But for some unexplained reason, these editions are often
arranged on the very top shelf where the titles can't be read except by people
who needn't read them. Although I complain, bookstores fail to see the
absurdity and choose not to alter the corporate-imposed store layout.

It is high time for us of limited vision to raise our voices and collectively
demand fairness in flying. It is much appreciated that some airlines have moved
in-flight entertainment from the top of the cabin to the backs of the seats,
although I don't for a moment believe it was done for sake of visibility.

The farsighted world is blind, or at least myopic, when it comes to seeing the
somewhat unnecessary struggles of us in the low-vision set. Sunday marked the
25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which has been a
tremendous boost for folks with challenges of various kinds. For struggles like
mine, though, the problem is that when most people think disability, they think
paraplegic. When people think accommodation, they think wheelchair accessible.

Meanwhile, many mid-range disabilities go unacknowledged. It is classic case of
out of sight, out of mind.

James Alan Fox is the Lipman Professor of Criminology, Law and Public Policy at
Northeastern University and a member of the USA TODAY Board of Contributors.


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