I agree with Mike Gravitt and i'd like to point out the
following as well:
1. ACB and it's membership who do lobby have participated in various
efforts to support Accessible Currency over the years to no avail.
2. The ACB would not ever consider wasting limited resources to pursue a
legal action which was not well thought out or for a frivolous cause.
3. Currency changes periodically. Remember that the $10 bill was changed a
few years ago and there's talk about changing other bills so I don't
consider this to as being any great imposition upon the U.S. Treasury
Department.
4. I'm fairly certain that a vending or other machine which accepts bills
in different denominations may already be designed for other countries
whereby the currency is different and that it might not be that difficult to
retrofit or to reprogram.
At any rate, these same vending machines can be gradually changed over as
they are routinely replaced.
5. Ask any person who is blind and who must deal with a lot of cash for
their work such as a vendor, direct sales person, musician, or or service
person whereby cash is routinely exchanged. I've known of situations where
they've gotten short-changed and had no independent means of either tracing
back to where they made the mistake in knowing what their bills were or
could prove that the guilty party took advantage of him or her.
6. Since another list participant already pointed out that where the print
is on the bills is already a problem, then perhaps therein is another reason
for redesign to occur.
7. This past Saturday, I had an opportunity to try a Talking ATM. I
performed the desired transaction without any problems. Yet when I reached
for the cash, I still wondered that gee! how do I know that this machine
dispensed three twenty dollar bills versus three ten dollar bills as some
ATM machines do dispense both denominations. I certainly would liked to
have independently verified this rather than guess and ... pardon the pun!
to have to exercise blind trust!
These are just some of the points I can think of and know there are more.
But the bottom line is that it is likely that ACB does not have to expend a
lot of resources to pursue this action and I believe it's a great
opportunity for us as persons who are blind or vision impaired to achieve
empowerment and to be able to attain another aspect of personal control over
one's daily life activities.
Amanda Lee
Alexandria, Virginia U.S.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Gravitt" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 8:55 PM
Subject: Re: ACB seeks change of bills:
Hi everyone,
I have been following this thread some, but not in detail. In regards to
vending machines, has anyone thought that many machines will likely start
using the one-dollar coin instead of the bill. I understand that the plan
is to phase out one-dollar bills altogether and move to using the coin only.
So, most machines will have to be re-engineered anyway. They could be made
to accept the new coins at the same time they are made to use newer types of
paper currency. Perhaps I am missing something here but it seems to me that
now might be the best time to make things happen.
Mike
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Fowle" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 8:09 PM
Subject: Re: ACB seeks change of bills:
> Message-ID: <[log in to unmask]>
>
> I suppose I wasn't clear about the current situation with the possible
> accessibility of currency.
>
> Over the past 10 years there has been an intergovernmental panel on
> the changes to be made in U.S. currency.
>
> All the points made here and many more were made and done to death.
>
> The upshot was that the treasury was not about to make major changes in
the
> currency, mostly because of the manufacturers of currency handling
equipment.
>
> This is both the machines we know about and other equipment used inside
> banks and the like.
>
> After lots and lots of time and money were spent, the gov simply said
> something like:
> We are not making any changes, the designs for the new bills have been
complete
> since 1963 and will not change.
>
> The fact that bills wear out in 18 months and that printing engraving
plates
> are not hard to make is irrellivant.
>
> It is the currency handling equipment and procedures which are hard to
> change.
>
> It is a waist of time to file a suit which is a foregone failure.
>
> Particularly considering the pro money attitude of the current supreme
court,
> filing this suit merely shows how far from reality all the
> blindness groups are. You only "go to the wall" on
> truly important issues.
>
> Now I'll stop, enough allready!
> Tom Fowle
>
>
>
> Net-Tamer V 1.12.0 - Registered
>
>
> VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
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>
>
VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
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VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
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VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask] In the body of the message, simply type
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