From: Richard Webb 
Subject: Re: Assistive Technology Lemon Law
Hello Greg,
Recently, you wrote in nfb-talk:
   >There is a bill currently pending before the New Mexico legislature
   >which would create an assistive technology lemon law.  If passed and
   >signed into law, the law would require makers of assistive
   >technology devices to place a 1 year warrantee on their products.
   >I seem to recall some discussion that such laws would have an
   >adverse impact on the blind because they would discourage
   >development and marketing of assistive technology products designed
   >for use by the blind; the argument being that the market for blind
   >persons is so small that anything that reduces profitability would
   >mean fewer new products.  Does anybody have any comments?
I don't know how other folks are doing with the assistive technology of
choice,
but, I've been using asap and asaw.  In the case of asap, since  1993.  The
technical support I've gotten from Larry and Dennis, when needed, has been
excellent.
I don't know how others fare, I'm sure your mileage may vary, but from what
I've heard, Blazie does an excellent job also.
For other communities, such a law might be beneficial, because, as a
lawyer, you know that plenty of folks are out there selling "Snake oil" and
see a chance to make a buck, and damn the consequences.  So far, though, I
don't think too many of them are involved in assistive technology for the
blind.  If they are, they're not major players in the market at this point.
I think there are plenty of so-called services available to the blind which
are lemons at best, but they're not in the assistive technology business.
In my humble opinion, rfb comes darned close, and I can say with even more
first hand knowledge that the out of touch radio reading service funded and
provided by AFB is definitely in the lemon category.
Notice both of these use volunteer readers of varying quality, and their
products vary in quality too.  What  I've seen from rfb has been one or two
older ascii books, which were fine enough, but a college student friend of
mine has some books for some course work which are quite poorly done on
cassette for afb.  One such is for transcription type work, and the reader
doesn't even bother to give proper punctuation or other pertinent info.
Her boyfriend ends up reading out of the ink text to tell her where such
things would be placed, but that's another issue entirely.
AS for assistive technology in our field, though, I think that we have
conscientious developers of assistive technology.  The problem, I think,
comes with a lot of places where you have to buy from a local dealer who is
not knowledgeable about the product.  Therefore, he/she can't provide
adequate support, and it falls back on the developer to provide it, while
only adding cost.
There needs to be some streamlining in those cases, but I don't think that
a lemon law is the way to go at this time.
Just my $0.02 worth.
Regards,
Richard Webb,
Electric Spider Productions
Recording and sound
Amateur call kb0ruu
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