Nashville is the first city I’ve lived in that has beepers at some of the crosswalks to inform blind people of when the lights change. Consider a four-way stop. When a blind person hears the beeper going off, how do they know which crosswalk it applies to? Couldn’t it be either the one they wish to cross or the perpendicular one on the other street?
Britain-only answer:
There’s a small round button on the bottom of the box where you press to cross - when the signal goes green, it spins. So anyone with a problem hearind the beep signal can just hold it with their hand and wait for that instead. It also comes into play with crossings in residential areas, where the beeps shut off at nighttime, or in situations like you describe, where conflicting beeps could cause a dangerous situation.
They might be using one sound for north-south crossings, and another for east-west.
And they know which is which…how?
IANABP but I’ve worked with several.
At “beeperless” cross walks they listen to the sound of the traffic. It takes surprisingly little time to become attuned to the direction the sound is coming from, and be able to determine if the traffic is criss-crossing in front of you (don’t walk) or next to you (walk).
Presumably, the technique could also be used at a “beeper” cross-walk
Other cues include what other pedestrians are doing around you, and subtle visual cues (few blind people are completely blind, and many can detect movement of objects even if they can’t see those objects clearly)
And, of course, if the person in question has a guide dog, the dog plays a role as well.
Similarly, the more modern pedestrian crossings in Dublin have a small metal pad with three raised dots on it. When the beeper goes off, the metal pad vibrates (quite violently - shocked the crap out of me the first time I tried one).
In Salt Lake City, the crosswalks have 2 different sounds. For crossing in one direction there is a “chirp chirp” sound, and the other direction is a “cuckoo” sound.
New York State Vehicle and Traffic Laws actually have a provision for blind people in crosswalks. A vehicle must stop if the person crossing has a guide dog, or a raised white cane with a red tip. It is against the law to use this cane if you are not blind.
See here, Section 1153.
http://www.nysgtsc.state.ny.us/peds-vt.htm#sec1153
Actually that explanation could make some sense, since I imagine that blind people must generally have a better sense of internal orientation than the rest of us. But it would still leave the question of what happens if you have intersections where the streets are not exactly north-south and east-west, but rather at an angle. I imagine that a blind person would just have to memorize which noise is which for each intersection they cross frequently.
I would expect that every cross walk in a given town (state/ country) has the same sound for North/South and East/west. It then is just a question of the blind person contacting someone that would know to find out the convetion in that area.
I would expect that every cross walk in a given town (state/ country) has the same sound for North/South and East/west. It then is just a question of the blind person contacting someone that would know to find out the convetion in that area.
Heh…I’m just re reading my post above (#8) and I’m thinking that a guy in a crosswalk in New York City, waving a cane, is a target.
Blind guy 