My commute to work consists of, among other things, a ride on the region’s metro rail (train).  For fares, people purchase tickets that they feed into turnstiles which then return to you the ticket so it can be used again upon exit. Assuming there is more money on the ticket than the cost of your trip, the ticket will again be returned to you for the next time you use the system.

Standard turnstiles take the ticket in the front and return the ticket at the top.  However, for wider turnstiles designed to facilitate the extra space required for people with luggage (or, I suppose, very large people), the turnstile returns the ticket from the same slot in which the ticket was given.

At the station near where I live, they’ve recently added a new large turnstile. This is something they should have had from the start given our proximity to the airport, but better late than never, I suppose.  Of course due to the odd behavior of these turnstiles in terms of ticket return, there’s bound to be some confusion for the normal commuter who might not have seen or used them before in terms of ticket retrieval; they won’t know to take their ticket from the same slot in which they’ve inserted it. Understanding this, the station has pasted VERY bright, florescent signs that are placed on top of, but not obstructing, the ticket slot.  I mean, these are visible from the street and have clear, bold text indicating that the ticket is returned from the same slot it is inserted millimeters from the slot itself.

Nevertheless, I saw a very non-blind woman today use the large turnstile and become very confused as she couldn’t find her ticket at the top.  I saw her look directly at the slot when inserting her ticket so I can’t imagine she missed the sign.  I can only conclude that she’s either illiterate, or we as a society (or maybe just this woman?) have been trained to ignore even the most obvious presentations of relevant information.

Maybe we don’t think it’s relevant?  We are constantly inundated with advertisements and other unwanted annoyances.  Are they interfering with our abilities to isolate the necessary information that we should be paying attention to?  Or are some of us just disposed to ignore authority or presume we already know and don’t need to be told? I say RTFM all the time, yet I know most of the people I say that to, don’t.  How much are some of us missing by not simply paying attention? And what would it take to make those people start?

Maybe one of these…