Seeing the world through tainted eyes

This article is another that departs from my usual focus on rail, but don't worry I'm not talking about the UK election either. If you want to read about rail then check out my other articles

Most of us take our vision for granted, and show compassion for those who have lost their sight through accident or illness.

Many of my readers will be looking through lenses at this article to sharpen their sight, shed soft focus script, or to help soothe strained eyes. Whether that be spectacles or contact lenses, corrected vision is undoubtedly common and predicted (by me at least) to be on the rise.

However there are some sight deficiencies which are largely invisible. In this article I explore the challenges of being colourblind, or to my "US English" readers colorblind.

 Colourblind conundrum

Colourblindness affects about 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women. That makes there are nearly 3 million colourblind people in the UK alone - about 4.5% of the population.

I am one of that 4.5%

When I tell people I'm colourblind the most common question I get asked is: "What colour is this...." and they'll point to a variety of nearby objects. Whilst I can answer and often get them right (my colourblindness is not very severe) - I often try to flip the question by asking them to describe a colour instead. Try it yourself. It isn't as easy as you may think. Try describing the colour orange or your favourite if you prefer in the comments below.

How I see and interpret colour is slightly different to the majority of the population. It isn't that I cannot see colour, I simply see it differently. There are occurrences of those who are completely colourblind, but they are very rare. I have the most common form of colour deficiency - Red-Green.

So what is it like living with colourblindness?

Washing - We colour code our taps for hot and cold. Showers are no fun when you turn the knob the wrong way! I specifically look for plumbing that has H and C on them - but then of course when I visit France I have to be careful again!

Dressing - When I'm putting on my clothes my dress sense leaves a lot to be desired - but hey the colours look great to me! (but maybe slightly odd to others with normal vision)

Driving to work - Traffic lights seem so simple that you couldn't get them wrong. In the most part that is true with "Stop" being at the top and "Go" being at the bottom, but then in the dark and in the rain and at distance and at speed - this simple task can become more complicated. There is a special place in hell for traffic planners who use horizontal traffic lights.

Getting in to the office - Many offices have card security systems and often they use bi-colour red/green LED to signal when access is granted. This little diode is the bain of many colourblind peoples lives, as particularly in strong sunshine you have no idea whether to go or not as red/green colourblindness is the most common type.

Grabbing a snack - Fruit helpfully often changes colour as it ripens, so we know when we grab that banana off of the supermarket it is perfectly ready to eat - well except if you are colourblind of course! If you eat meat as I do, cooking red meat correctly can be a challenge when you can't tell red from brown too.

Work - I work in the rail industry and I occasionally manage to get out of the office and trackside. However my colourblindness means I cannot hold many positions that are perceived to rely on normal colour vision such as a look out.

Again at work an amusing situation arose when I was technical manager for rail inspection in the UK. A stringent eyetest is set for our rail inspectors who obviously are looking for tiny imperfections in rail during manufacture, and naturally as their arbiter I should be subject to the same standards . However for some reason - probably lost in the mists of time - the vision test also includes a colourblindness test - which I spectacularly fail. Thankfully as I was writing the rules I could grant myself an exception! (We don't use any manual inspection that requires any degree of colour vision).

Watching TV - After work its time to relax for a bit, however, that infernal bi-colour LED rears its ugly (mono-colour), head again on the freeview/satellite/cable box to try to spoil my viewing pleasure. Is it on or off?

Putting out the rubbish - I try to recycle as many do to help preserve this environment for my children - however when there are a million and one coloured boxes and bins and of course I usually empty them at night, getting the right rubbish in the right bin can prove quite tricky. In low light green, blue, black and red all look the same to me!

DIY/Hobbies - My hobby is cars and I can turn my hand to pretty much most jobs. I'm good with auto electrics, well so long as someone else checks the wiring colours for me!

Image from Flickr - Bart Everson

Heading to bed - You'd think this is simple (aside from the plumbing problems mentioned above), but there is one more cruel trick played on colourblind people. Because our eyes are essentially missing a normal number of colour receptors, we have more light receptors than usual to fill in the gaps. This means we generally see better in the dark than those with normal colour vision. That's handy at times, but means that any stray illumination in the bedroom is like a huge searchlight shining in your face to keep you awake. Indeed those with the rare form of total colourblindness often have to wear very dark glasses to see properly even inside.

So you can see there are a few challenges that us with colourblindess face unseen and often silently.

However there are a few benefits of being colourblind too.

• You get better night vision than normal people which comes in handy at times
• You are better at spotting lost and camouflaged items, (as you are more used to detecting shade than colour)
• You have a unique take on the world around us that few get to see. Ok you can't see colour as well but you can spot minute shade differences which others miss.

So spare a thought for us colourblind people occasionally especially if you are designing things. Don't use bi-colour LEDs, and always keep traffic lights vertical

If you have never been tested or suspect you might have colourblindness then have a look here for online tests. Obviously if you are still worried contact a properly qualified person to get a proper test.

Thanks for reading my mini-rant. I hope you have found it interesting and feel free to share it with others. For more rail related and hopefully original content then follow me. And if you ever want to talk-tech about rail then connect and drop me a line and I'll try to help.