There are 7 to 10 million blind and visually impaired people in the United States, and with the aging of the baby-boomer generation, that number is expected to increase by another 4 million by 2015. The American Council of the Blind (ACB) is one of the leading national organizations of people who are blind and visually impaired and is dedicated to improving the quality of life, equality of opportunity and independence of all people who have visual impairments.
Three issues are at the forefront of our 2008 legislative agenda: the Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act discussion draft, accessibility to commercial web sites, and pedestrian safety issues regarding hybrid and other quiet vehicles.
Issue: With increasing frequency, television and Internet products and programming rely on visual information to communicate with consumers. Products are created that utilize on-screen menus, and in programming, significant events are portrayed visually: emergency weather advisories are scrolled across screens, and telephone numbers are displayed on television screens unaccompanied by verbalization. People who are blind, or have visual impairments, are thereby denied access to a significant portion of the vast array of communications services available today.
Proposed Action: ACB strongly urges the House of Representatives to formally introduce the Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act discussion draft that has been created by the House Energy and Commerce committee in close consultation with the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT). ACB strongly supports the following specific provisions in the discussion draft:
1. Extending television captioning decoder circuitry requirements beyond TV sets with screens of 13 inches or larger to all video devices that receive or display video programming with sound, including those that can receive or display programming carried over the Internet. This would also require these devices to be able to transmit and deliver video description. (Video description is the provision of verbal descriptions of the on-screen visual elements of a show provided during natural pauses in dialogue.)
2. Reinstatement of regulations for video description that were struck down by a U.S. Court of Appeals in 2002. These rules would also be widened to (a) ensure that video description services can be transmitted and provided over digital TV technologies, (b) ensure that digital TV equipment can make available the delivery and use of video description, (c) require non-visual access to on-screen emergency warnings and similar televised information, and (d) increase the amount of video description required.
3. Defines video programming to include programming distributed over the Internet to make clear that the existing closed captioning obligations (and future video description obligations) apply also to video programming that is distributed or re-distributed over the Internet. This is intended to ensure the continued accessibility of video programming to Americans with disabilities, as TV shows migrate to the Internet.
4. Require TV user interfaces to be disability accessible, including devices used to receive and display Internet-based video programming. This means accessibility of functions of such devices (on/off and volume controls, program selection). For instance, this could mean (a) audio output where on-screen text menus are used to control video programming functions, and (b) a conspicuous means of accessing closed captioning and video description, including a button on remote controls and first-level access to these accessibility features when made available through on-screen menus.
Issue: Despite the mandate of Congress and the administration, too many areas of business and commerce open to the general public, including virtual (e.g., Internet) goods and services, remain inaccessible to people with disabilities. Title III of the ADA bars discrimination on the basis of disability by “places of public accommodation” and “commercial facilities” “engaged in commerce,” yet experts report that currently as many as 98 percent of all commercial web sites are inaccessible to the disabled.
Proposed Action: ACB strongly urges the House of Representatives and Senate to formally introduce language as stand-alone legislation. Specifically, we are seeking the following:
1. Places of Public Accommodation
42 U.S.C. 12182 (b) is amended by adding at the end the following:
(4) Application. -- As used in this title, the terms “establishment” and “place” of public accommodation shall not be construed so as to limit application of the non-discrimination requirements of this title only to those public accommodations which own, lease, or otherwise occupy or operate physical facilities or other structures open to the public.
2. Effective Communication
42 U.S.C. 12182 (b) (1)(A)(iii) is amended to read as follows:
(iii) Separate benefit. -- It shall be discriminatory to provide an individual or class of individuals, on the basis of a disability or disabilities of such individual or class, directly, or through contractual, licensing, or other arrangements, with a good, service, facility, privilege, advantage, or accommodation that is different or separate from that provided to other individuals, unless such action is necessary to provide the individual or class of individuals with a good, service, facility, privilege, advantage, or accommodation, or other opportunity that is as effective as that provided to others. To be effective, such a good, service, facility, privilege, advantage, accommodation, or other opportunity must be provided to the individual or class of individuals at no additional cost and with the same timeliness of delivery, accuracy of communication, privacy, and independence as is provided to others.
Issue: When vision is reduced or completely eliminated as a means of understanding and responding to one’s environment, an individual’s hearing takes over as the primary source of environmental information. Traditionally, people who are blind or visually impaired have learned to rely on their hearing to navigate safely across streets and through other vehicular ways, such as parking lots. In so doing, the sound of traffic is their primary focus. Traffic sounds provide information about such things as the position of vehicles, their direction of travel, and the speed at which they are likely to move. With this information, the pedestrian can make informed decisions about when to cross a street or other vehicular way safely.
In recent years, automobile manufacturers around the world have responded to public concern for our environment by producing increasing numbers of vehicles that are meant to be environmentally friendly. This has led to an increased number of vehicles on the road which not only utilize alternative fuels to power their engines, but also run much more quietly than older automobiles did. Though many aspects of this trend are laudatory, efforts by the auto industry to make the environment less noisy have placed pedestrians who use that noise to evaluate the safety or danger of the area in which they are traveling at serious risk.
Proposed Action: The American Council of the Blind urges Congress to pass a resolution in support of research by both government and private entities into means by which the issues outlined above can be addressed. We believe that Congress should provide the U.S. Department of Transportation, or other appropriate federal agencies, with funding for such research, should direct that the agencies conduct such research in a timely manner and report back to Congress at its conclusion with recommendations, and should direct that appropriate federal agencies have the authority to commence implementation of recommended solutions within two years after the passage of this legislation.