Deaf Cards

By C.C. Ryder

Recently I was tasked with making sure that the staff at DHHSC had all gotten their insurance cards. One of the staff members jokingly responded by saying they hadn’t received their Deaf Card. I immediately got online to find a Deaf Card to accommodate this staff member knowing that they wouldn’t expect me to actually find one, much less send it. After we had a great laugh, I added that the card itself wasn’t hard to find – it was just a matter of which one.

In all seriousness and to my amazement, there was quite a selection of Deaf Cards (including the old ABC “for a donation” cards that the Deaf community prefers were obsolete). Most of the Deaf Cards I found available were to facilitate communication between Deaf and Hard of Hearing drivers and the police.  Interestingly, most were produced in the Eastern part of the U.S. as well as in Minnesota, Kentucky, Texas, Arizona and Oregon. All of the aforementioned states have programs that provide visor cards for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community and communication cards to police officers.

In the past and sometimes even now, when a Deaf person was pulled over by a police officer for a minor infraction (broken tail light, rolling stop, lack of signal) rather than hassle with finding a way to communicate the officer would let the person off the hook. In cases where there was a major infraction (high speeds, plowing through a stop sign, DUI) miscommunications/misunderstandings were rampant and sometimes resulted in the rights of a Deaf or Hard of Hearing individual being violated or worse yet, in the death of an innocent individual.

The State of California Department of Social Services produces a basic medical communication card however, no other form of Deaf Cards or communication cards exist for encounters with public servants, specifically the police; in the state of California. Considering the huge Deaf and Hard of Hearing community here in the valley and the bay area alone, visor and communication cards are not only vital but an asset to the general public, public servants and the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community.

DHHSC offers an ADA visor card, which we created, that notifies another of an individual’s hearing status and explains further the right to communication access. To my knowledge, this is the only such Deaf Card available to the community and although this is certainly better than nothing at all, it occurs to me that this isn’t enough. The example set by the states mentioned above should be mandatory in every state across the board.

Of course as with all things, awareness and understanding is the key to facilitating change. I suspect that the State of California will eventually catch up with the states that are facilitating a positive change in the way the police handle Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals during traffic stops. Until then, below are a couple of samples of Deaf and communication cards that are being circulated in those states.

Pocket Deaf Cards

Visor Cards

Communication Cards

 

Medical Communication Card (California)

To view the medical card, go to: http://www.cdss.ca.gov/cdssweb/entres/forms/english/pub391.pdf