I suppose you might call this a part of a random series about living as a blind or visually impaired person, though I have no idea when the next installment will occur.

Anyway, before I provide the link to the article, let me provide a definition of ableism. According to the on-line Merriam Webster Dictionary, ableism is simply "prejudice and discrimination towards disabled persons."

Now to the article which is more than about problems just faced by blind people:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewpulrang/2021/06/14/fighting-ableism-is-about-much-more-than-attitudes-and-awareness/?sh=56887b0119c0

In fact, some of these issues (such as narrow doorways and a single step into restaurants) are pretty much nonexistent unless they suffer from another physical disability or have not been trained in mobility skills. On the other hand, the access to information issues cited is still a very big problem for the blind and visually impaired population, especially those who are totally blind. This is true, even if you have a talking and braille computer (as I do) because some websites do not provide their information in an accessible format.

One issue not mentioned in the article is the cost of getting insurance coverage. In 2018, after a water leak, my sighted sister (who lives with me) and I decided that we needed to get house insurance so we started researching the issue. I called a prominent insurance company that advertises a lot (it promotes its lower-than-others rates) and went through the process of seeing what I could get. Things were going along fine until the question came up about what kind of car I owned. I explained that I was totally blind and neither owned nor drove a car. The agent listened to my explanation and then quoted me a monthly rate of around $600.

Later, my sister tried getting a quote from the same company. Because she owned a car and had no visual issues, the amount quoted to her was around $200.

While we obviously purchased the house insurance under my sister's name, the experience does show that if you have a disability and are trying to live independently, you will be forced to pay higher insurance premiums than your non-disabled counterparts, even if there is no evidence that shows that you are a greater risk to them than your non-disabled counterparts.

blindguy,

Please let us know about any accessibility issues with the exmormon.org web site and this board. I can't guarantee that we can fix them, but we will try.

Some day we may move to different software, so it we may seek your advice then as well.

Thanks!

CZ



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2021 12:05PM by Concrete Zipper.

CZ:
While there are some minor issues (the only one I can think of right now is my inability to tell if a response is to the original message or to the message directly above it--they're not tabbed differently in the speech or on the braille display), the only major issue I ever had was when the captcha was installed and I was unable to post because of it. That was when I wrote Susan I/S offline and now I can log in or out if I wish to write anything.

Blindguy, I just stay logged in. Even when I reboot my computer, when I bring up the board, I am already logged in.

In my opinion this type of gouging is most immoral and dispicable

thedesertrat1 Wrote:
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> In my opinion this type of gouging is most immoral
> and dispicable

I agree.

State legislators need to become aware that this is a problem, and once they do become aware, new correcting legislation ought to follow at some point.

Hello, blindguy

You seem to have eliminated the possibility that never having had auto insurance (while your sister most likely has) played a significant part in the calculation of your premium.

Are you telling us that simply on the grounds that you are blind this insurance company tried to charge you higher rates? There aren't any other factors that could explain the disparity?

...the requirement that one have auto insurance to get lower insurance rates helps to prove my point. Blind people almost never have auto insurance because they almost never own cars (I do know of exceptions to that rule which is why I use the term "almost never.") And, if you didn't realize it from my initial post, I *did* tell the potential insurer about my visual impairment (or lack of vision, to be more precise) when the agent asked about the kind of car I owned.