One of life’s greatest so-called mysteries is why American drive-up automated teller machine keypads have Braille on them. On the surface it seems to be a preposterous notion. After all, the logic goes, blind people can’t drive; but who says only a car’s driver can use the ATM? Passengers can easily operate ATMs from the back seat too — and with the aid of head phones, the blind can enjoy drive-up banking in complete privacy. That’s why federal law rightly mandates Braille on drive-up ATMs.
The bottom line: Before boldly dismissing any notion as folly, you might want to evaluate it from multiple perspectives.
Photo Credit: orionpozo
What I want to know is the reason American ATMs are designed for a Ford 250 instead of a regular sedan. I have to either get out of my car completely or look like a dog hanging out the window to use one.
@Wojo — I have that same problem: 1 short South Asian girl (me) + 1 tiny sedan car = consistently unable to reach the keypad. I have to either pull my car so close to the keypad that I risk deflating a tire on the curb, or else I have to simply get out of my car, inspiring laughter and mockery from all who watch me.
Paula, since you moved to Georgia, you need to join the rest of us and buy you a pick’em up truck-with gun rack.
Let’s talk about it over kielbasa and pirogies, Wojo.
Len, help me understand: why do people call them ATM Machines? It’s redundant!
So are PIN numbers. I think it’s due to an affliction known as “RAS syndrome” which, somewhat ironically, literally means “redundant acronym syndrome syndrome.”
Citi Bank had a keypad that could be moved up or down depending on the size of the vehicle. My friend had a truck so he always moved it up to reach it. I hope they still have those. It would be handy for you two, Wojo & Paula.
Why do we drive in a parkway and park in a driveway? Another one of life’s mysteries.
Why is there an interstate highway in Hawaii ?
I can’t believe no one has seen (or if they have, they’ve been silent) the most obvious reason yet: manufacturing efficiency. I’m pretty sure it’s much easier for a company to crank out one set of keypads than it is to produce two. They leave it up to the buyer to decide if the ATM will be in the mall lobby, the bank lobby, or a driveway behind the bank.
Yes, I’ve heard that argument too. However, that was clearly not the motive because the banking industry fought against having Braille on drive-up ATMs.
Len-you’re a hoot! I get an emormous kick & satisfaction, not to mention amusement reading your blog. Your out of the box sense of humor entertains me to no end. Thanks!
The way some people drive nowadays, I’d swear there are blind people behind the wheels of some cars.
On a similar note, I have always wondered why Elevators in parking ramps have Braille and audible indicators for the blind.
Also the drive-up atms can be used by someone on foot, so a blind person could walk up to one to use it.
Ahhhhhhh…. A nice gem of knowledge for today, thank you kindly sir.
As one of your blind subscribers, I found this post especially insightful. Now, if only we could get computer developers to use half your common sense to think ahead this way, we’d have more jobs to help more of my blind brethren become tax payers rather than tax burdens. Keep up the good work! Oh, and by the way, since we’re on a blind note, thanks for not using those stupid CAPTCHA things that make it unnecessarily difficult to leave comments.
Thanks, Joe. Sorry for the CAPTCHA, but if I didn’t use it, I would be inundated with spam. Even with the CAPTCHA tool, I have been hit with more than 1 million spam comments over almost six years of blogging. (Yes, more than 1 million. If it wasn’t for the Akismet spam filter, I would have had to disable the comments section entirely.)
Local drive thru fast food place here has 3 parking spots….one is for handicap drivers per city regulations. Now this a drive thru ONLY place….no inside seating, no public bathroom, absolutely no reason to exit your car. You drive by an order window, drive around the building and pickup food on the opposite side, drive on out.
” …the number of people aware of debit and prepaid cards is more than double the percentage of those actually using them …” (61% of “financially active” people? See statistics elsewhere in the article):
http://www.plasticcardonline.com/articles/Plastic_card_usage_study.htm
Quite a few of us don’t use ATMs, ever.