[blindkid] Silent cars and warning signs.

Albert J Rizzi albert at myblindspot.org
Wed Feb 27 20:54:07 UTC 2013


Well said and some very wonderful analogies and correlations were brought
forth I this post Richard.


-----Original Message-----
From: blindkid [mailto:blindkid-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Richard
Holloway
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2013 1:37 AM
To: Blind Kid Mailing List, (for parents of blind children)
Subject: [blindkid] Silent cars and warning signs.

Heather, I am curious-- when you suggest:

> If a child, blind or sighted, cannot be trusted to act reliably playing or
crossing busy streets unsupervised, then they need to be supervised  by a
responsible adult who knows the child's developmental level and likelihood
of putting themselves in danger. The adult can then prevent the child from
injury

Your point is well taken, but I am left particularly to wonder how silent
(or nearly silent) cars factor in?

Also, I continue to stress that my personal take on the these signs is
nothing close to a replacement for appropriate adult supervision. They are
an added safeguard, just in case we can't be in the exact right spot at the
exact right moment. So many seem fine with the concept of "child at play"
signs, which would tend to indicate that parents of these kids must be at
least a step or two away from their kids at times (or they would ned no
signs), but apparently we parents of blind children are to be held to an
"arm's reach" standard or the like so we can always redirect our kids until
they have fully mastered their O&M skills. That seems unrealistic somehow.

All that aside, what can we do to keep our kids safe in a world with ever
increasing numbers of quieter and quieter cars?  (And how can blind adults
do likewise for themselves, for that matter?) If we can't manage to deal
with quiet cars safely, the other issues seem to be potentially less and
less important, as the percentage of quieter cars on the road grows each
year.

It strikes me that if we cannot teach our blind children to listen for
[nearly silent] cars, we are pretty much left with the option of trying to
alert the quiet cars to blind pedestrians. Do you have an alternative to
suggest?

I suppose we can all decide it is just too dangerous and closely supervise
our children indefinitely, but at some point these kids will become adults
and we parents will get too old to help them across the street. Fact of the
matter is, I'm sort of hoping Kendra will be able to help ME across the
street many years from now...
_______________________________________________
blindkid mailing list
blindkid at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindkid_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
blindkid:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindkid_nfbnet.org/albert%40myblindspot.o
rg


-----
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2013.0.2899 / Virus Database: 2639/6119 - Release Date: 02/20/13

-----
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2013.0.2899 / Virus Database: 2641/6135 - Release Date: 02/26/13





More information about the BlindKid mailing list