The River City News: FOR COVINGTON'S BLIND, AWARENESS NEEDED

Sunday, October 16, 2011

FOR COVINGTON'S BLIND, AWARENESS NEEDED

by Michael Monks

Find us on Facebook: The River City News @ Facebook

A blindfolded Commissioner Frank is led
across a busy intersection.

Three of Covington's city commissioners strapped on blindfolds and were guided across one of the city's busiest intersections at Madison & Levassor, a 5-way stop where the road forks toward two parts of Latonia. The Northern Kentucky Council of the Blind invited them to learn the everyday dangers of everyday acts for the city's blind and visually impaired. Commissioner Sherry Carran was shaking after her trip across the street, said Teri Meyer, second vice president of the group. "They understood a little bit more," Meyer added, also noting that the commissioner became aware of crumbling curbs and unlevel elevation on the sidewalks.

The Council was recognizing National White Cane Safety Day, an annual awareness campaign for the sighted to become more familiar with what their blind neighbors deal with on a daily basis. "We can hear the traffic whizzing around us (when crossing the intersection)," Meyer said. "Even though they have talking lights, drivers don't pay attention." There is only 35-seconds allotted for people to cross the lenghthy stretch of Madison Avenue at Levassor, across from Holmes.

L-R: Dave Perry, Teri Meyer, and Cisco Slusher lead a
blindfolded Mayor Pro Tem Carran.

"The cell phone has replaced the pedestrian," said Cisco Slusher, vice president of the NKY Council of the Blind. Another issue in traffic situations is the rise of the use of hybrids that are virtually silent. "We can't hear the hybrids, and we have heightened sense of hearing," Meyer said.

NKY Council of the Blind President Dave Perry said that issues facing the blind go futher than traffic. "Seventy-five percent of blind people are unemployed," Perry said. "(White Cane Day) is important to us." Meyer used herself as an example of the struggle for the blind to get work. It was only five years ago when her sight started to go, after fifty years of being able to see, following a birth defect catching up to her.

Teri Meyer talks to Mayor Pro Tem Carran and
Commissioners Frank & Casper

"I was in my first semester at Gateway and realized that I couldn't see the board," Meyer said. "They measured my sight at 20/200 which is legally blind and now it's 20/800 which is what they call unmeasurable." In spite of the blindness, Meyer excelled at Gateway, maintaining a 4.0 grade-point average and graduating last May at the top of her class. Still, she has trouble finding work.

"I've gone to second interviews and they say they need to see my computer skills, and I say, 'Well, come on down to my school and I'll show you'," Meyer said. Members of the NKY Council of the Blind suggested that they lose out on job opportunities because employers are worried about added cost involving specialized equipment. But the group says that the Cincinnati Association for the Blind would provide the proper computer or other equipment if agencies hired blind employees.

Meyer is an experienced hard-worker having put in close to forty hours a week toward her studies. "Have you ever done college algebra without being able to see it," she joked. "I don't let it stop me, obviously. I was top of my class!"