In an epistle to All dated 27 Feb 97 23:41, Gtrapp@Abq.Com says:
 Gt> From: gtrapp@abq.com
 Gt> Subject: Assistive Technology Lemon Law
 Gt> There is a bill currently pending
 Gt> before the New Mexico legislature
 Gt> which would create an assistive
 Gt> technology lemon law.  If passed and
 Gt> signed into law, the law would require
 Gt> makers of assistive technology
 Gt> devices to place a 1 year warrantee on
 Gt> their products.  I seem to recall
 Gt> some discussion that such laws would
 Gt> have an adverse impact on the blind
 Gt> because they would discourage
 Gt> development and marketing of assistive
 Gt> technology products designed for use
 Gt> by the blind; the argument being
 Gt> that the market for blind persons is
 Gt> so small that anything that reduces
 Gt> profitability would mean fewer new
 Gt> products.  Does anybody have any
 Gt> comments?
Sorry to quote in full but I thought the subject of sufficient 
importance to merit quoting of the entire query.
I had not thought of this subject until five minutes ago when I 
read the above message.  Hence, my thoughts are off-the-cuff and 
perhaps I may change my mind later.  nevertheless, here goes.
It seems to me that blind persons, as other citizens, deserve to 
be able to purchase products which perform as advertised.  We all 
know that, though the assistive technology market has been an 
exemplary one in that few devices have been "lemons", there have 
been some spectacular exceptions -- exceptions which have, in some 
instances, cost blind consumers money.  It seems to me that 
reputable purveyors of assistive devices have nothing to fear from 
a lemon law such as you outline.  That the market for assistive 
devices for the blind is small seems to me insufficient reason to 
give an exception for such devices in the law and, furthermore, 
such an explicit exception might send the wrong message.  It sure 
would to me -- it would say that the blind aren't good enough as a 
class to deserve the same sort of protection afforded other 
disabled persons under the proposed law.  In general, therefore, I 
think there should be *no* exceptions.
Havint said this, however, some questions come to mind.  What 
happens in the situation wherein, say, a blind user (or an entity 
acting on behalf of a blind user -- say, an employer) purchases a 
particular screen-reading system in anticipation that this system 
would make a certain program accessible and such program turns out 
*not* to be accessible, at least at the time of purchase?  
Certainly, if the vendor of the screen-reading system claims that 
the program to be accessed is accessible, the vendor should be 
subject to the proposed lemon law.  But what if the vendor makes 
no such claim?  Is it, as now, a case of caveat emptor?  Or does 
the lemon law protect the blind user, entitling him/her to get 
his/her money back?  This would be great for the user but I could 
see it working a considerable hardship on small vendors who might 
not even have known the purchaser was going to use the system to 
access the currently-inaccessible program.
This sort of situation must be coming up rather frequently these 
days since we are in the relative infancy of screen-readers which 
can handle the G.U.I. and programs, for the most part, may not 
cooperate yet with such screen-readers.  It's a jungle out there 
and I am in somewhat of a quandry as to how it is to be tamed, 
particularly when we, the blind, in the aggregate, don't know 
enough about the graphical environment to know what sort of access 
we need.
Just food for thought.
Mike Freeman
Internet: mikef@pacifier.com
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