Wow! “Dear y2kemo” requests have been on fire lately. Thanks to all of my faithful who have neglected to get involved. Your lack of effort is inspirational and appreciated. I can only hope that more people are as non-participatory as you.
Today’s head-scratching question comes from big time radio personality, media production entrepreneur, and all around funnyman @joelgillie who writes:
Dear y2kemo… question for you… why do they put braille letters on drive-thru ATMs?
According to the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) braille is “a series of raised dots that can be read with the fingers by people who are blind or whose eyesight is not sufficient for reading printed material. Teachers, parents, and others who are not visually impaired ordinarily read braille with their eyes. Braille is not a language. Rather, it is a code by which languages such as English or Spanish may be written and read.”
In other words, braille is a language used to encrypt and decrypt coded messages. Coded messages, or ciphers, have been around for a while. The German’s used an Enigma machine to send secret messages during WWI, and the U.S. military used Native American code talkers to send secret messages to the troops in the field during WWII. And there are plenty of uncracked ciphers out there as well. Like the coded languages used to create ciphers, braille is used to enhance security and keep sensitive materials away from prying eyes.
And, with the increase in identity theft and fraud, banks use braille on drive thru ATMs as an added measure of security. But they aren’t the only ones to use braille as a safety measure. There’s braille on fast food drive thru menus, street signs, even billboards. Pretty incredible, right?
To answer your question @joelgillie. They put braille on drive thru ATMs for blind people.
And that’s why banks put braille on drive thru ATM machines. If you have a topic or question you’d like me to answer, send me an e-mail at HelpMe@y2kemo.com.