Making US banknotes easier to identify

A court ruling in the States requires that the US Treasury redesign their banknotes to make them more accessible to the blind and partially sighted. (via Rupert Myers)

Comments from the web range from the vaguely dismissive to the misguided and outraged — interestingly, James Joyner and Doug Mataconis suggest that the US Congress will simply amend the necessary piece of legislation to exclude banknotes from its remit.

Anyone used to handling Sterling or Euros, regardless of their visual capabilities, is likely to find US Dollar notes and coins a bit of a shock — their European counterparts aren’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but there’s a much greater range of sizes and colours, which no doubt aids blind and partially sighted people to distinguish between the different denominations.

NPR highlight a range of options in their piece on the ruling — engraving, raised watermarks, size and colour variation and holes — and arguably any of these would make US currency more accessible.

Rupert raises an interesting point, though:

There is certainly a problem with currency, and the visually impaired have a huge challenge in discriminating between denominations of notes, but surely this decision opens up an absolutely massive can of worms?

The constitutional implications of this ruling are unclear — it seems that the judge may have overstepped the mark somewhat — but Rupert argues:

This ruling makes very little sense unless you are also prepared to rule that traffic signs, road markings, and pretty much every other object in the world discriminates against the blind.

While one would hope that there aren’t too many blind drivers around, pedestrian signing for the blind is obviously an area of concern, and it’ll be interesting to see how this case pans out.