It is revealing how people with disabilities are treated, just to walk on sidewalk as a deaf person. Most cyclicts assume they have a priority on sidewalks, and will ring bell to enforce it. If you do not jump out of their way in 2 seconds, you get rammed.
Cyclists know I can not hear them (I am wearing big noise cancelling headphones). Yet they still insist on their imaginary priority on sidewalks. I was forced to remove my noise cancelling headphones, just to hear their slurs!
Cyclists on bike have no priority, they are not allowed to cycle on sidewalks! They should be using roads! I am allowed to wear my noise cancelling headphones on sidewalk! I looked it up!
This went from "deaf people should be allowd to function in society", which is absolutely fair, to "I don't want to take any responsibility for being aware of my surroundings", which is what wearing noise-cancelling headphones in public is. You can do that but you then share some of the blame when things go wrong. Saying "well, deaf people have to deal with this so it's not my fault" isn't the defence I think you think it is. Do I close my eyes and walk blindly in public there are blind people? No.
Accomodations are for people who need them not a shield for hyper-selfishness.
I cycle and I either don't wear any headphones or I use the open ones where I can still hear my surroundings. I assume every driver is eitehr an oblivious idiot or is out to kill me. I assume it's every pedestrian's first day on Earth because that's how it seems. The level of entitlement I see on a daily basis is insane. Runners who refuse to get out of dedicated bike lanes, people who park in dedicated bike lanes, people who get annoyed that I go onto the road when I'm allowed to, people that get annoyed that I go onto the sidewalk or road because I have to (often because the bike path is blocked), people who walk 5 abreast on a shared pedestrian bike path, etc etc etc.
But what really gets me is people who have elevated their own hyper-selfishness into some kind of virtue. "I'm going to block out all noise in a public space because that's what deaf people have to deal with" is a new one for me.
Oh and as an aside, people who are deaf often aren't completely deaf. Deafness (and blindness) is a spectrum.
"Accomodations are for people who need them not a shield for hyper-selfishness", namely people riding bicycles on sidewalks that are seen acting with an insane level entitlement while riding on dedicated walking lanes.
People act as people do regardless of their method of conveyance. A polite way of encountering a group walking where they should (and another should not ride) is to dismount the bicycle, say "excuse me" and walk through, then to remount and continue on the bike. In the case you mentioned, calling out in advance "excuse me, coming through" should just do it. If not, step up to bell ringing.
You should see what cyclists from Austin do on the Texas backroads, with their stopping in the middle of the lane at the top of a hill, doing the same on a tight curve, riding abreast... But again, people are people; they don't seem to realize road signs have a setback for a very good reason.
Not sure where you got the "I don't want to take any responsibility for being aware of my surroundings".
GP simply pointed out cyclists are apparently super unfriendly to deaf people, inferred from the experience where GP made himself temporarily deaf.
It doesn't matter whether GP takes responsibility or not. The issue is the social phenomenon where cyclists create danger for themselves and deaf pedestrians.
> I cycle
I know it's bad to stereotype people but you're not helping it.
TBH, the whole thing reads like a pretty off-topic rant, its a leap from 'accesibility to blind users' to 'treatment of people with disabilities' to 'cyclists being aggressive towards the poster, who is neither but wears noise-cancelling headphones'. I'm not sure if there's a productive discussion to be had around it.
Making sure you are fully aware of your surroundings is prudent, in case someone is acting recklessly or maliciously, but it shouldn't be a requirement.
You're not to blame at all when a cyclist runs you down on the pavement (that they shouldn't be on). Yes, you might have heard the bell without the headphones, but they're the one acting recklessly, and they're the one responsible for ensuring that they don't harm people acting normally.
There are all sorts of situations that it's possible to anticipate, but there's no moral fault ascribed for not acting defensively against every possible form of attack.
this sounds like a mess :') i am happy here in NL most people know the rules. occasionally you hear someone huffing and puffing about an oblivious tourist but thats about it. ofc there are anti social ppl still but the average is to know well the rules and follow them. it makes it so its pretty risk free in any mode of transport.
Only motorbikes is tough because people dont like them going past them in traffic jams :/ the last bastion of decency in our traffic xD... (lets forget about people who own racing bikes they dont count)
People have zero obligation to be able to hear their surroundings.
Listening to music on a walk is a perfectly acceptable thing to do. It’s very slightly less safe for them, but they aren’t risking other people so that’s fine.
That's simply not true and bad advice. This comes up in distracted driving cases. If you play so loud that you can't hear your surroundings, you can become partially (or wholly) at fault for an accident [1]. I guarantee you there are situations where your intentional sensory deprivation will lead to legal liability so you have to be extra careful if you choose to do that.
You have an affirmative responsibility to act in a reasonable fashion to mitigate risks for yourself and others.
In distracted driving cases, you're behind the wheel of a vehicle that is capable of harming others; that's why it leads to legal liability. In situations where you are not likely to cause harm, "act[ing] in a reasonable fashion to mitigate risks for yourself and others" does not require anything from you.
> Where I had control, I made changes. Unnecessary labels removed. Accurate alt text added — not filed-in-for-compliance alt text, actually descriptive alt text. The heading structure was cleaned up where I could reach it. For this project's SharePoint tracking page, I rerouted entirely: instead of asking users to fight through the noise, the system now sends an email update at every stage of the approval.
seems to be the only bit of text that actually details anything that was done. I would liked to have read about the actual changes and steps taken to improve accessibility instead of some kind of low key rant about MS
Not to your critique, but from the quote, I’m alerted to the idea that filled-in-for-compliance is malicious compliance or non-compliance. I can’t imagine the frustration multiplier it must be. So much is frustrating enough on the intended mass-audience happy path.
While the content was interesting, the AI-slop-stench was repelling.
Talking about AI (sorry!), perhaps an AI assisted screen reader could remove repetitive elements (it appends "(read only)" to every. single. field.) in a smart fashion? Does this already exist?
We're seeing AI being used to improve a11y in quite a few places: (Live) transcripts for video conferences, image to text (VQA, visual question answering) etc.
Cyclists know I can not hear them (I am wearing big noise cancelling headphones). Yet they still insist on their imaginary priority on sidewalks. I was forced to remove my noise cancelling headphones, just to hear their slurs!
Cyclists on bike have no priority, they are not allowed to cycle on sidewalks! They should be using roads! I am allowed to wear my noise cancelling headphones on sidewalk! I looked it up!
Accomodations are for people who need them not a shield for hyper-selfishness.
I cycle and I either don't wear any headphones or I use the open ones where I can still hear my surroundings. I assume every driver is eitehr an oblivious idiot or is out to kill me. I assume it's every pedestrian's first day on Earth because that's how it seems. The level of entitlement I see on a daily basis is insane. Runners who refuse to get out of dedicated bike lanes, people who park in dedicated bike lanes, people who get annoyed that I go onto the road when I'm allowed to, people that get annoyed that I go onto the sidewalk or road because I have to (often because the bike path is blocked), people who walk 5 abreast on a shared pedestrian bike path, etc etc etc.
But what really gets me is people who have elevated their own hyper-selfishness into some kind of virtue. "I'm going to block out all noise in a public space because that's what deaf people have to deal with" is a new one for me.
Oh and as an aside, people who are deaf often aren't completely deaf. Deafness (and blindness) is a spectrum.
People act as people do regardless of their method of conveyance. A polite way of encountering a group walking where they should (and another should not ride) is to dismount the bicycle, say "excuse me" and walk through, then to remount and continue on the bike. In the case you mentioned, calling out in advance "excuse me, coming through" should just do it. If not, step up to bell ringing.
You should see what cyclists from Austin do on the Texas backroads, with their stopping in the middle of the lane at the top of a hill, doing the same on a tight curve, riding abreast... But again, people are people; they don't seem to realize road signs have a setback for a very good reason.
GP simply pointed out cyclists are apparently super unfriendly to deaf people, inferred from the experience where GP made himself temporarily deaf.
It doesn't matter whether GP takes responsibility or not. The issue is the social phenomenon where cyclists create danger for themselves and deaf pedestrians.
> I cycle
I know it's bad to stereotype people but you're not helping it.
You're not to blame at all when a cyclist runs you down on the pavement (that they shouldn't be on). Yes, you might have heard the bell without the headphones, but they're the one acting recklessly, and they're the one responsible for ensuring that they don't harm people acting normally.
There are all sorts of situations that it's possible to anticipate, but there's no moral fault ascribed for not acting defensively against every possible form of attack.
Only motorbikes is tough because people dont like them going past them in traffic jams :/ the last bastion of decency in our traffic xD... (lets forget about people who own racing bikes they dont count)
Listening to music on a walk is a perfectly acceptable thing to do. It’s very slightly less safe for them, but they aren’t risking other people so that’s fine.
You have an affirmative responsibility to act in a reasonable fashion to mitigate risks for yourself and others.
[1]: https://naqvilaw.com/las-vegas-impaired-driving-attorney/lou...
seems to be the only bit of text that actually details anything that was done. I would liked to have read about the actual changes and steps taken to improve accessibility instead of some kind of low key rant about MS
Interesting that the language of sight is so prevalent that it appears in this very title twice.
Echoing other comments, this would be a stronger article if it went into more specifics, but the AI voice precludes that meaningfully.
Well, it appears once in "invisible", and once in "blind"... but I don't see why "blind" is a surprise when talking about someone blind.
There is no reference to sight in "reveal".
[1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/reveal
Talking about AI (sorry!), perhaps an AI assisted screen reader could remove repetitive elements (it appends "(read only)" to every. single. field.) in a smart fashion? Does this already exist?
We're seeing AI being used to improve a11y in quite a few places: (Live) transcripts for video conferences, image to text (VQA, visual question answering) etc.
So a couple of days plus a few hours. Seems reasonable.