A sense of power in Washington

"Fallbrook. Sounds like an apartment complex," sighs the woman who is holding the leash of the Lab. "Don't blame me. He was named before I got him."

From other corridors in all directions, now, I hear metal sticks on marble floors, the echoes of citizens who have come to petition their local Representatives in their offices on Independence Avenue. In all, there are more than 500 visually impaired men and women in the building today, not counting the members of Congress.

I approach the group of four plus Fallbrook and learn they are part of the Indiana delegation to an annual convocation of the National Federation of the Blind. They are:

Joe Higdon, congenital glaucoma, blind since birth.

Darrell Robinson, diagnosed with glaucoma at the age of 28; totally blind at 40.

Ed Brown, losing the remaining fraction of his vision to macular degeneration; and, Jan Wright, part of an epidemic of a condition called retinopathy of prematurity that peaked during the 1940s and '50s. This dreadful episode may have been due to an overabundance of pure oxygen infused into the incubators of boomer babies who, like Wright, were born a few days or weeks too soon.

"They didn't really know back then," Wright says, stroking Fallbrook.

"There but for fortune," I whisper to myself, remembering my own eye surgery when I was nine, reliving searing childhood fears I would lose my sight.

The Hoosiers and the 500 others have come to the Rayburn Building in support of two pieces of pending legislation. Amid all the chaos and clatter of health-care reform, Asian wars, budget deficits, immigration policy, gay rights and crippling unemployment, their needs are more immediate and poignant: not to get run over by a Leaf or Volt or Prius; to be able to use a washing machine or a microwave oven or an office copier without having to beg a sighted person for help.

One bill is entitled the Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act of 2009. The legislation notes that: "when operating on their electric engines, hybrid vehicles cannot be heard by blind people and others, rendering such vehicles extremely dangerous when driving on the street, emerging from driveways, moving through parking lots, and in other situations where pedestrians and vehicles come into proximity with each other... "

"When they're running on their batteries, they're too quiet," Higdon says. Indeed, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has already found that walkers and bicyclists are being struck at a greater rate by hybrid vehicles than by noisier, fuel-burning cars.

The other draft is called the Technology Bill of Rights for the Blind.

Rapid advances in microchip and digital technology have led to increasingly complex user interfaces for everyday products like consumer electronic devices, home appliances and office technology devices. Many new devices in these categories require user interaction with visual displays, on-screen menus, touch screens and other interfaces that are inaccessible to blind or low-vision individuals.

Both have been referred to the appropriate House committees, where they have languished for more than a year. A year of lobbying by the blind of Indiana and beyond has made little progress in budging the bills.

"They will not claim they're against it, they just won't sponsor it," Hidgon shrugs.

"They're afraid what it's going to cost," says Wright.

Meanwhile, General Motors -- which is partially owned by the United States government -- promises to equip the battery-powered Chevrolet Volt with a ringtone that will alert pedestrians when the driver pulls back on the turn signal.

"We want it to be more of an 'excuse me' sound as opposed to a 'hey you!' sound," the Volt's chief engineer tells the National Federation of the Blind. "We don't want it to sound like birds; we want it to sound like a car."

Toyota, which has enough to worry about without worrying about running over blind people, says it is "studying" the issue.

Back on Independence Avenue, I try as tactfully as possible to ask the blind folks from Indiana what their magnificent capital looks like to those who cannot see.

"It's a feeling," Brown replies. "Even though you didn't see a lot of stuff, you KNOW."

"This is awesome," says Robinson, impeccably dressed in a well-tailored suit and purple tie and a pencil-thin moustache. "To walk the halls the presidents walked. Just knowing that we came here trying to make a difference, that's very exciting to me."

He tells me that coming here from Indianapolis was the first time he has travelled alone.

"Since I went blind," Robinson says, "I've been to so many amazing places."

Allen Abel is a Brooklyn-born Canadian journalist based in Washington, D.C.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 6, 2010 H11