Braille messages in taxis - the latest dotty idea. Picture by Karimala, Dreamstime.com
Braille messages in taxis - the latest dotty idea. Picture by Karimala, Dreamstime.com
New Zealand taxis must now display information in Braille, in yet another extreme example of politically correct lunacy. Who’s dreaming up this never-ending wave of useless nonsense? They should be taken out and quietly shot.

An estimated 81,500 New Zealand adults have a limitation that cannot be corrected by glasses or contact lenses. About 7800 of these are completely blind, and the rest have some level of visual limitation that makes it difficult for them to see ordinary newspaper print, or see the face of someone across the room.

So we are talking about 7800 New Zealanders who are candidates for learning Braille. But not every blind person is able to learn it. This is not only because of a limited education, but also through brain damage that resulted in blindness in the first place, or type 2 diabetes in older people (older people find it harder to learn new skills and type 2 diabetes also causes less sensitivity in extremities – not good if you need your fingers to “read” Braille).

According to the Braille Literacy statistics (2004), there are 309 members of the Foundation of the Blind who are Braille users over the age of 16. This means that approximately 3 percent of the members are Braille users. There could be a few users who are not members of the Foundation of the Blind, of course – so let’s make it a nice round number of 600 people who master the art of reading Braille in New Zealand, or 0.015% of the total population of 4 million.

Let’s say that on any given day, one out of every five Braille-reading blind people takes a taxi: that adds up to 120 people from a population of 4 million = 0.003%.

Most of these people will be in the company of a visually able person, or they make routine taxi trips to doctors or hospitals and have their regular drivers and taxi companies.

Are you beginning to wonder if there is even one single blind person, who has the ability to read Braille, who is travelling by taxi on their own, in an unfamiliar environment, and feels the urge to ask the taxi driver to hold the compulsory display in Braille in their hands, so they can read the “important information, such as the name of the driver and the taxi company”?

So thousands of taxis all over the country must obey yet another blinkered, bureaucratic rule that serves no purpose whatsoever…

Nanny's boob on bikes - they must be off their heads. Picture by Molka, Dreamstime.com
Nanny's boob on bikes - they must be off their heads. Picture by Molka, Dreamstime.com
This has echoes of a tragic accident in the 1980s when a boy fell off his bike in Palmerston North and was killed by a passing truck. His mother started a campaign for all cyclists to wear a dopey piece of plastic on their heads (as if that gives any protection against the wheels of a truck), which was later turned into yet another crazy Nanny State law. So all cyclists have to suffer deep embarrassment for no apparent reason, because of a single freak accident.

In the Netherlands, there are 17 million people riding their bikes in traffic that is 40 times heavier than in New Zealand.

You’d be hard pressed to spot one of them wearing a helmet.