Are You Aware of the Networking Group for Blind People called - The Blind Ones?

The aim of the Blind Ones is to educate sighted people about their lives and how they cope in a sighted world without sight.

Are you aware of these vision impaired access tools in Brisbane?

Have you ever noticed that there are unusual tiles on the sidewalks in the Queen Street Mall, approaching various traffic lights, bus stops and train stations around Brisbane?

Some tiles are raised circles and others continuous lines of raised rectangles. There is a particularly good reason for these tiles; they are used by vision impaired and blind people to help find their way safely around our city. The official name of these tiles is ‘ground surface indicators’ but they are more commonly known as Braille Trail and hazard tiles. You will even find these tiles in high traffic volume areas like shopping centres as well.

How do they help? Blind and vision impaired people use a long cane to ‘scan’ the ground in front of them or feel with their feet to alert them of hazards, direction options or ground surface changes. The tiles are tactile objects that alert them to hazards or tell them when they may need to change direction. The raised circles tell them ‘hazard ahead’ while the raised rectangles form a line for them to follow.

 Narelle Gatti, who is vision impaired commented that:

 “When I get to an intersection in the Blind Trails, I have to use my cane and feet, as well as the sounds around me, to work out which direction that I want to go. It takes some getting used to as I can’t use my eyes like most people.”

  Narelle said that vision impaired and blind people also use the raised rectangles in areas where there is no property line or curb edge to follow. For safety reasons, the directional tiles are in the central areas of shopping malls, train stations and now on some of our Brisbane streets.   

Some of our city traffic lights also have audible and tactile signals to let the visually impaired and blind know when the lights change. The audible signal is obvious; a slow beep when it is not safe to move and a fast beep when it is.   However not many people know that traffic lights also have a tactile signal which helps in noisy areas. “The tactile signal is a vibration on the push button, which when combined with the audible sound tells us when it is ok to cross. The fast vibration means I can go while the slow vibrations means stop,” said Narelle.

It is important for the visually impaired and blind that that they have access to these tools around Brisbane sidewalks to help them maintain their independence.   I intend, and I am sure that you will too, that as part of the ‘seeing public’, to be considerate and helpful to our fellow Brisbanites by making sure that I don’t unwittingly block access to these wonderful tools.