Protecting the visually-impaired from the rest of us

I suppose somebody has to be the political "test kitchen", trying out new legislative recipes, and the California legislature seems to be determined to be the Betty Crocker of political ideas. Often though, they're more Crock than Crocker. Now the CA legislature has decreed that hybrid vehicles must make noise so that visually impaired people won't walk into them, and has created a committee to study the problem. Whatever "solution" they recommend, be prepared for national standards to make it mandatory nationwide. Even if that doesn't happen, auto makers generally cowtow to CA standards and inflict them on everyone for simplicity sake.

This idea belongs in the crock with the loud backup beepers required on commercial vehicles. The backup beepers are required on vehicles that are normally quite noisy. It's obviously not just the blind who are in danger. Clearly, we are all too stupid to avoid moving objects, and need to be protected.

I suspect most of us have been almost run down by a bicyclist, or a runner. If Segways gain in popularity, they too will be a threat. Police forces are adopting them, which makes them a compound threat. How about kids running free, skateboards, rollerbladers, or even the ever-increasing number of powered wheelchairs and scooters. Personally, I would like to include baby strollers, which, in a crowd, can reach your legs a full 4 feet before the adult pushing it. They're really like turning your kid into a snow plow, aren't they? Can you imagine what it must be like for a little kid in a stroller at, for example, the State Fair?

Clearly, we cannot have all of these stealthy moving objects endangering us. Surely it's only a matter of time before all objects moving at, say, greater than 2 mph, will have to make some sort of recognizable warning that they're approaching us.

Can you hear the babel of all those now-silent moving objects warning of their presence?

I think this California problem can be nipped in the bud. There are about 600,000 blind or visually-impaired folks in CA. For every one of them there are 59 sighted Californians. Why make a change that will negatively impact 59 to help 1? Why not make a change at the relatively small source of the problem?

I propose the creation of a protective device for blind people... perhaps a sort of exoskeleton they can don when out navigating the hubub of human and vehicular traffic. It would provide protection from a great variety of dangers they face regularly. I can only try to imagine what being blind must be like, and I keep coming up with FEAR of all those things I can't see coming. Many animals have developed exoskeletons to protect themselves... crustaceans, turtles, insects, to name a few. It's a sensible adaptation when a creature composed of soft tissue has to face a world inhabited by danger. A blind human moving in an urban area certainly fits that criteria.

California has more than its share of far-out designers who could surely create exoskeletons that would not only be protective but have many other advantages as well, such as interfacing the many electronic devices modern folk carry, or foiling police facial recognition software. They could certainly become fashionable. They could provide secure storage. It's possible that they could be equipped with radar-type sensors that would warn when solid objects are approaching. I doubt that only blind people would be attracted to them.

Government naturally tends to produce brute-force, one-size-fits-all "solutions" to anything perceived by anyone as a problem. When they do that, they drive up the cost of products we use, and inconvenience everyone to protect a few. Child-proofing continues unabated. I mistakenly bought some bottled water with caps that cannot be removed... you can only squirt the water in your mouth. Caps might be swallowed by children (as might anything else in sight). Cigarette lighters are child-proofed so we don't have to teach kids not to mess with them. Medicine bottles are child-proofed to the extent that elderly people can't get them open either, then skip their medication or pry them open with dangerous knives or other tools.

When government tries to force safety on us, they fail; they inevitably make life even riskier for poor people who can't afford the added cost of the new dictated protective measures. There are innumerable examples of people injured and killed by using old, worn-out devices because the newer, safer ones are just too expensive.

There is no way we can remove risk from living... no way at all, but the best way for all of us to live safe lives is to allow the market to produce solutions at all levels... from extremely safe to risky, and let the consumers choose their own level of protection.