The Rebuttal

Click here for the wonderful Auslan translation by the brilliant David Barry Parker

The year is 1985. I am involved in a car accident out on the York Peninsula. The car I was in left the road and headed towards the ocean. Thankfully, there was a tree in the way which stopped the car being swallowed by the sea. Or not!

Said tree made a mess of the car and shattered my left femur. I think my head might have gone through the window too cos for months after I was picking glass out of my scalp that had become embedded under the skin. I lived and left hospital a month later. I had a nine-screw plate keeping my femur together.

I had a caliper to wear as well. This was so I could remain active and walk. I walked with crutches for a few months and then just with the crutches. It seems we got rid of the caliper a little too early.

I was at my mum and dad’s place in Adelaide. I was on holiday from university in Queensland. I decided to walk to the shop and as I closed the front door I felt a small click. There was no pain, but my leg felt odd.

I went back inside and sat down. I rubbed the bottom of my left thigh with my hand. As I did so my calf spasmed and my heel rose slightly from the floor. Shit! I knew something was wrong. I was home alone, deaf, and needed to call someone. No mobile phones, no messenger, and mum and dad had no TTY. Even if they did have a TTY, the NRS was 10 years away. WHAT SHOULD I DO????

I am recalling this story because recently I was at the airport. No, I didn’t injure myself again, probably to the surprise of many, but I had to pick up a car hire. The car hire company didn’t have an office at the airport. You had to call them to arrange a shuttle bus to pick you up, but only after you had picked up your baggage and were outside of the airport. Deaf and phone calls; it’s the age-old problem!

Now, unlike in 1985, I have options. I can use the NRS and hope to God I can get through. It was not an option this time because my registration has lapsed. I could use Convo, but I have not signed up and, despite being NDIS savvy, I have never actually signed up for the NDIS. This left me one option. To call using the caption feature on my iPhone.

I am lucky to have the privilege of good enough speech. I have a Deaf accent that also is mixed with a bit of cockney twang. I am understandable over the phone, but sometimes people struggle to understand me. Also, with captions there is a slight lag. More than once I have been hung up on because the person at the other end thinks that it is a prank call.

If I do call, there is a bit of trepidation. I fear the person at the other end won’t understand me. I fear that they will hang up on me. One tends to fear the worst. But I had to call. I nearly chickened out and got one of my sons to call. They were too busy they said (bastards). I asked them over Messenger. So, I had to call. I called and, SHIT, I got an artificial intelligence (AI) answering machine.

Thankfully, the phone captions worked a treat. “Press 1 for shuttle bus bookings.” I dutifully pressed 1. “After the tone, please leave your name and phone number and we will send you a text to advise you of the pick-up time and point.” Uh oh!

Now, the captions only caption words. What tone? When I leave my name and number, will the AI technology understand me? Will I pick the right moment to leave my message or has the tone long been and gone? I hung up.

What to do? I decided to call back and once I got to the part of the message that said leave details after the tone, I would count to two and in my plummiest accent possible, leave my details. I am not sure how a Deaf accent plummy sounds, but I prayed it would suffice.

So, I left my message and hoped that I would receive the promised text notifying me of place and time of pick-up. One minute, nothing. Two minutes, nothing. I swore not so silently and, cursed my sons for being too busy! And then the text came! Phew!

There was a fair line up of people at the pick-up point. Interestingly there are a number of car hire companies that run shuttle buses too. When the shuttle buses come, the drivers get out and call out names of who they are picking up. SHIT! Finally, the company picking me up arrived and out jumped an Indian man replete with turban.

Now I am not being racist here, far from it, but I immediately broke out in a cold sweat. I know that deaf people reading this will fully understand because Indian accents are amongst the hardest to lipread. I hoped that this was an Australian born Indian person whom I could lipread. Alas not.

So, he called out the names, 1, 2, 3 and 4. Number 4 didn’t answer. I was pretty sure that was me. So, I walked up and was about to explain that I was deaf, couldn’t hear him and state my name but he said something that lipread as something like, “U Gally?” I nodded frantically and entered the bus. As I sat down, I realised that I was actually breathing a bit heavily. Not quite hyperventilating, but close.

Does it really need to be this hard? There is a thing called Universal Design. It is a simple concept where if we design something we consider the needs of a wide range of people. You design a house where doorways are wide enough for wheelchairs or large people. Or the frames are high enough so that tall people don’t bang their heads. Or you have labels for toilets that are in braille. Or you can press a button that voices the purpose of a room. Or where trains have verbal and visual announcements that occur all the time for all announcements. And so on and so on!

This car hire company had just put me through a mini-version of hell; so much that I was showing tell-tale signs of stress. It didn’t need to be so. They could have designed a shuttle bus booking system where you could call or simply send a text.

I mean Uber is a great example where you can use voice or text. True, its mostly text but they have also considered Blind/vision impaired people in their Uber App that has accessibility features for both iPhone and Android. That said, I’m pretty sure that there is a lack of accessible uber cabs and vehicles, and this disadvantages wheelchair users no end. This is another universal design consideration.

The point that I am making is that it is time for business, governments, service providers, designers etc to start thinking universally. BE UNIVERSAL! Think of everyone when you design your products. It will reduce stress such as what I have just described. Best of all, it will make the world more accessible for everyone. Universal Design also drives higher profits, increases brand exposure and reduces likelihood of a business being sued! And for me! At my age, I can do without the stress.

Oh? And what happened to me back in 1985, where I was stuck home, leg possibly broken and no access to the phone? I hobbled to the neighbour, who looked up the friend my mum and dad were visiting in the phone book, found them and my mum and dad rushed home to take me to hospital. The plate in my leg had snapped and my leg was again broken. Those were the days!

At least it is better now but we still have so far to go!

** Footnote, I feel a bit hypocritical as I have released this article with no Auslan translation. I am not being very Universal. Sadly, my Auslan is not up to it, but I will try to get an Auslan version soon. (Any volunteers are welcome 🙂 )