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Comment by gitowiec | Hacker News Reader

What means legally blind? Can one be illegally blind?

Typically this phrase is used for someone who has very little eyesight remaining, but is not completely blind. Many countries have laws prescribing a minimum level of sight below which you are entitled to benefits accorded to blind people (for example, the right to do exams in Braille or orally, or financial compensation towards getting a guide dog in countries where that is part of social healthcare)

An example of this challenge appearing elsewhere: in the US, long-haul effects of COVID have recently moved under the Americans with Disabilities Act umbrella. The problem, however, is there’s not a single easy, testable way to determine if someone has it or not.

> the right to do exams in Braille

Because if someone has a perfect sight he is not allowed to do exams in Braille?

Whether it is allowed or not is up to the exam's administrator.

The relevant law in the US, the Americans with Disabilities Act, does not require the admin to allow it unless the exam taker provides a letter from a health-care professional asserting a disability and reimburses the admin for any extra costs in accommodating the disability.

You have the right to require accommodations for a disability, you do not have the right to demand the same accommodations just because you would prefer it that way.

Many types accommodations add extra burden or cost on the service provider, so if someone with e.g. perfect sight asks for a vision-related accommodation, they are allowed to refuse.

There's an unspoken assumption that acting with a disability plus an accommodation should not produce a greater result than the unaided and non-disabled act. I don't know whether that's fair or not, but I think that's the source of the trouble here.

It probably means that the person's blindness is sufficient enough as to be recognized by the legal system. Just a guess.

Here's an example of legally blind...

  Higher Standard Deduction for Blindness
  ...
  1. You can't see better than 20/200 in the
     better eye with glasses or contact lenses, or
  2. Your field of vision is 20 degrees or less.

See https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p501.pdf

I believe 20/200 means you can read only the top letter, E, on vision charts.

20/200 means that a person with that level of vision is able to read something from a 20 foot distance that someone with 20/20 vision would be able to read from 200 feet away.

It depends on the laws of the country. I believe in the USA it means uncorrectable 20/200 or worse vision.

The eye is a remarkably complex organ and thus it can fail in many different ways. There are many people with eye disorders who do not fit the legal definition. Either their condition is correctable (not curable), or their usable vision is above 20/200. Since many conditions are degenerative a person with an eye condition may become legally blind over time.

It's a specific threshold e.g. 20/200 vision or worse. Some may be able to see to some extent, but it's still bad enough to be considered blind for disability purposes.

One example is having SOME eyesight but not correctable enough to qualify for a driver's license.

Most visually disabled people retain some usable vision. The levels for qualifying for a driver's license are different than the definition of legally blind. For instance, my state requires vision correctable to at least 20/40 in one eye, and a FOV of at least 60 degrees to drive without special bioptic lenses (basically a monocular that attaches to a pair of glasses.) To be classified as legally blind (at least in the United States) you must have vision that cannot be corrected to better than 20/200, or a field of view of less than 20 degrees. It gets complicated because you can be on disability even if you don't meet the definition of "legally blind" if you have vision issues that cause you to be unable to work. This is on a case by case basis and requires a hearing in front of a disability judge.

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