To travel is a human right. To move is freedom. As a blind person, taxis are an exercise in trust, more than for most.
Consider the red tape (and trust) in taxi travel concessions for people with a disability: In NSW, details of a journey, including start time and final fare, must be entered by the blind passenger into the space provided on voucher and butt and signed as being true and correct. The driver hand writes in other details from their onboard computer. The taxi owners submit vouchers en masse, and these forms are hand checked by the government agency (at an unspecified venue) against those same computer records before payment is authorised.
Yep, they double handle.
Apparently, computerised text recognition was trialled. There were delays in payment.
Some drivers get a little paranoid about the ability of blind people to write only one letter per square when filling in 'the space provided'. Impatience to get to their next job does not help. There is pressure to hand over blank cheques.
Legally requiring a blind person to fill out a hardcopy form by hand each leg of a journey is madness. Requiring paper receipts and butts, not legible to the passenger, be kept for years after a journey despite not being able to read what is being kept; and on paper that fades well before they are legally allowed to be disposed of; is folly.
It is also lived reality.
A swipe card presented at the start of a journey would make a lot of sense. Victoria has had swipe cards for the last ten years. They haven't looked back. Paper vouchers are only kept as backup for computer failure in a cab.
But here in NSW, I’ve heard of people, more blind than I, taking care to photograph the receipts before they faded. They ended up with many a selfie. At least the auditor can tell how much concentration went into keeping individual records. Maybe that will do, as much as signing that I have read the above.
Consider the red tape (and trust) in taxi travel concessions for people with a disability: In NSW, details of a journey, including start time and final fare, must be entered by the blind passenger into the space provided on voucher and butt and signed as being true and correct. The driver hand writes in other details from their onboard computer. The taxi owners submit vouchers en masse, and these forms are hand checked by the government agency (at an unspecified venue) against those same computer records before payment is authorised.
Yep, they double handle.
Apparently, computerised text recognition was trialled. There were delays in payment.
Some drivers get a little paranoid about the ability of blind people to write only one letter per square when filling in 'the space provided'. Impatience to get to their next job does not help. There is pressure to hand over blank cheques.
Legally requiring a blind person to fill out a hardcopy form by hand each leg of a journey is madness. Requiring paper receipts and butts, not legible to the passenger, be kept for years after a journey despite not being able to read what is being kept; and on paper that fades well before they are legally allowed to be disposed of; is folly.
It is also lived reality.
A swipe card presented at the start of a journey would make a lot of sense. Victoria has had swipe cards for the last ten years. They haven't looked back. Paper vouchers are only kept as backup for computer failure in a cab.
But here in NSW, I’ve heard of people, more blind than I, taking care to photograph the receipts before they faded. They ended up with many a selfie. At least the auditor can tell how much concentration went into keeping individual records. Maybe that will do, as much as signing that I have read the above.