Hello all, I am forwarding an e-mail I received from Gary Wunder regarding audible pedestrian signels. On a recent NOMC Zoom call, I discussed the information that Gary gives in this e-mail I'm forwarding. It was not in written form until now, as I understand it. So I requested that Gary consider writing it down. He did so, and he verified what he wrote with the other participants. Sincerely, Ben Begin forwarded message:
From: Gary Wunder <gwunder at earthlink.net> Date: June 26, 2020 at 10:10:09 PM CDT To: Ben Vercellone <benv at fastmail.com> Subject: FW: Audible Pedestrian Signals Reply-To: <gwunder at earthlink.net>
? Here is the story. I confirmed it with all of the folks involved, hence the delay in responding.
Greetings to all of you who did testing of audible traffic signals in Columbia. I told something like the story below, and when some of our professional folks heard the story, they wanted it in written form. So, before I commit it to writing, let me see if it jives with your recollections. Here it is:
About four years ago our Columbia chapter became involved in the discussion about audible traffic signals. We were notified that the city planned to put some in, and all of the usual arguments about signals got floor time at the chapter meeting.
As a chapter that had been in existence for well over forty years in the community, we were surprised and just a little bit angry about hearing that a decision had been made on something of such importance without us. We figured out what units of city and state government had been involved in the decision, but before we wrote to them about the signals, we thought it prudent to first do research. So it was that Dacia Cole, Justin Cole, Julie McGinnity, Debbie Wunder, and I piled into a car to investigate the intersections marked for a signal. Two of us used a cane, and two of us a guide dog. Four of the people I mentioned were blind. One could see, so he acted as our driver and our observer.
He was quiet during all of our crossings, and when we asked him how well we had done after visiting four intersections, his answer was different from what any of us expected. "At no point were any of you in danger of being hit. You were crossing safely, but more than half the time you were crossing during the caution or don't walk signal. If I had seen something terrible, of course I would've yelled out, but again, you were safe, but most of the time you were wrong."
For a long time I have been intrigued by the question of Are men made for laws or are laws made for men. Of course the latter is true, but, had we been hit, the fact that we were crossing against the light certainly would have weighed against us. We have worked hard to see that blindness is not used to find that we are contributorily negligent by traveling on our own, but I think that crossing against the light would certainly have to be an argument against us in almost any legal proceeding.