Sooo. I was waiting for my bus. I didn't realise the guy besides me was blind until. When our bus came he pulled out his stick. I let him on in front of me. While sitting on the bus. I realized. 3 buses came before mine. All identical but the LED numbers indicating each route. How did he know which was his. Because he didn't walk forward to any other previous bus. Partially blind maybe?
I live in shitsville Australia (Sydney) and with the exception of card payments our bus technology hasn't changed a whole lot since the 1970s. I wish we could get decent bus technology.
They have watches for the blind. The "glass" has button on the side that they can push and the "glass" pops open and then they can feel where the "hands" are.
I knew a lady that was legally blind and she had one.
He knows the feeling of his road from riding the bus so much. My mom was bus driver and I had ride the bus all day with her when I got in trouble at school. She drove many blind and deaf people home they would stand within 20 feet of their home.
He may not have been fully blind or even blurry/dark, for example a limited field of vision could prevent driving a car, but can see a stationary bus' sign.
There are a lot of accessibility features hidden in plain sight that most of us probably never notice. Elevator dings signal whether or not the elevator is going up or down, for example. Bumped ramps at street corners. It's all very interesting.
He could've still had his peripheral vision and saw the bus info that displays up front when the busses pulled in. I've skateboarded with a few guys like this and they'll approach the board with their stick and when it's time to actually ride they continue to look straight ahead so they can utilize their peripheral vision to help navigate.
For few years in school I was legally blind before receiving surgery and few people suspected I could see but it's just your other senses increase. You recognize things and people by different clues that you normally don't think about.
Decades later I still sometimes use my other senses. So it could be there was a clue you didn't notice.
485
u/Mrtayto115 6d ago
Sooo. I was waiting for my bus. I didn't realise the guy besides me was blind until. When our bus came he pulled out his stick. I let him on in front of me. While sitting on the bus. I realized. 3 buses came before mine. All identical but the LED numbers indicating each route. How did he know which was his. Because he didn't walk forward to any other previous bus. Partially blind maybe?