Things that crack me up, #35
WARNING! We're out there.
This doesn't always amuse me, but the persistent need to identify disabled persons' nearby presence -- distinct from identifying disabled access or other services -- does often crack me up.
"Ohmygod! They're lurking somewhere close! Those people you try not to stare at and never know what to say to. Look out! They're here!"
Photo descriptions: The first photo is a blurry color image of a yellow warning sign with the silhouettes of a man and woman walking. Below, a smaller yellow sign explains, "DISABLED." Flickr photo by dinaAZ.
Second photo is a color image of a white triangular warning sign with a red border. The silhouetted image is of a person riding a horse and a white sign below this one explains, "Disabled riders." Flickr photo by octa 2 yossie.
The third photo is a close-up of a big white sign with block letters. In red and underlined: "WARNING" followed by black text: "ELDERLY AND DISABLED PEOPLE." Flickr photo by markydeedroppics.
10 comments:
my favorite has to be the last one
oh nooooooooo they're coming!!!!
me too - the last one is my favorite. watch out-arrghhhh!!!
They're all inadvertently amusing. The first on is like: Watch out, there may be deer lurking, getting ready to sprint across the road. And disabled people too.
The second one insinuates that a disabled person on horseback is somehow more of a potential hazard than a non-disabled person on horseback, which is mystifying if you think about it.
The third one is tonally ominous and very silly.
The "disabled riders" one looks like it's from the UK. I've never seen that particular sign, tho i have seen ones with a little hunched-over person with a stick saying just "disabled people" (it's actually the same sign they use for "elderly people"... i have no idea why they don't use the wheelchair symbol, as just about everything else in the UK that has anything whatsoever to do with disability does)
Near where i used to live there was a street which had a "disabled people" sign in the middle of it, despite the fact that no disabled people, to my knowledge, lived on that street (it was all highly inaccessible housing), and there were no institutions or services for disabled people anywhere nearby. I never did work out why that sign was there...
Best one i've ever seen, however, has to be this one on a bus: http://biodiverseresistance.blogspot.com/2007/11/oh-irony.html
There is one in my town that is "Dear Crossing" with a drawing of an elerly person and a disabled person above the words.
Every time I pass it, I just shake my head in wonder.
Where do they come up with this stuff??
Yeah, you'd think they could actually say what they mean, like "the Deaf person living here won't hear your car horn" rather than "look out for the flying DISABILITY, sometimes it conks people on the head."
OMG, elderly AND disabled??? Thank god they warned us in time!
Words and visual cues can still give the wrong message.
Cheers
This is my calling card or link"Whittereronautism"until blogger comments get themselves sorted out.
The neighboring town was in discussions a few years back about whether to allow an "Autistic Child" sign in a neighborhood. The child's mother hoped it would keep drivers from assuming he'd respond typically to an oncoming car, a car horn, etc. And I understand that impulse, but....
But drivers shouldn't assume that ANY pedestrian will respond typically--it would be really dangerous if drivers thought, "Oh that's little Jeffrey, I know he's not autistic, so there's no way he'll do anything unpredictable." Or "That woman is not a senior, she'll surely cross the street quickly; so I'll just barrel through this intersection."
Actually, after spending quite a bit of time volunteering at a "therapy" stable a couple of years ago, I can see the point in the "disabled rider" warning... The kids sometimes had unexpected trouble that would have interfered with their ability to start/finish crossing a road, among other things -- a driver unaware of what was going on could think that they were screwing around and become angry. Someone with little knowledge of horses might even honk the horn under those circumstances, which would have been truly disastrous with some of those kids. It's basically a potentially dangerous spin on the reaction some people have if a kid is having some kind of trouble related to a non-obvious disability.
Thankfully we never had to deal with that kind of thing, since the stable grounds & arena were in a self-contained little valley. (I think the URL is giantstepsriding.org or something like that, if you're bored enough to want details. :)
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