Here's What The Bumpy Yellow Tiles On Walkways Are For & Why You Should Never Park On Them
They are the tactile guidance surface indicators to help blind people walk safely.
Have you ever wondered what the bumpy yellow (or sometimes black) tiles on Malaysian pavements are for?
You might have seen these tiles on mall staircases, on the pavement by the road, or at public transportation stations.
The textured ground surface is called a tactile guidance surface indicator, according to a TikTok video posted by @nadiatul_farhana.
The video shows her husband, a blind person, walking on the pavement in a road tunnel while using a cane to detect the bumps on the tactile paving.
She says, "It is to guide the blind so they can walk safely."
In fact, different patterns and textures on the tiles serve different functions
"The tiles that have circles are the warning tiles, while the ones with parallel lines are called directional tiles," she explains.
The warning tiles function to warn vision-impaired people of where a walkway ends. Meanwhile, the directional tiles help tell the blind people which safe direction they should walk towards.
Then, a clip of her husband walking on the detectable surfaces at an MRT station appears. He is seen pointing his cane onto the black and, later, yellow tiles while walking in the same direction as the bumpy lines on them.
Nadia then calls on the public to become concerned citizens by becoming aware of the importance of these textured tiles to the blind community
The video shows an example of things that can endanger visually impaired people, such as motorcycles parked on yellow tactile paving at a train station, blocking the path for visually impaired people.
She says, "Putting barriers on these tiles will endanger the blind people who are walking on them."
"If you see any blockade on the path, please help move it away," she pleads.
In the next clip, Nadia shows a screenshot of her video call with her husband, where a cylindrical concrete lies across some black warning tiles on a pavement by the road
"My husband once tripped over a broken concrete bar on a tactile pavement. He got a bump on his head," she lamented.
She later shows a photo of her husband's injured forehead that was caused by the trip.
