Waving without due care and attention

The province of Ontario is considering a ban on cellphones while driving. Other provinces - Newfoundland & Labrador, Nova Scotia and Quebec - have already instituted a ban, and even Alberta is considering it.

That's a good thing. I can't tell you how many people I see running red lights, blowing off stop signs, passing or changing lanes unsafely, all because they're too busy yammering. Being a pedestrian in good ol' Muddy York can be a real challenge at times.

Why am I blogging about this?

Today I had a moment of true puzzlement. On my way home from work I walk in front of a large office building. The underground parkade there is so busy at peak times that the place could really use a traffic light outside to help manage the volume of vehicles coming out. In the absence of a stoplight, there's a paid-duty policeman who is there to direct traffic. He holds off oncoming traffic on Front Street so that people can get in or out of the parkade; he also protects the pedestrians from getting run over by the drivers. All that is as it should be.

Until today. Here's the fine, upstanding officer of the forces of order, merrily directing rush-hour traffic... and talking on his cellphone at the same time.

Let's recap. The province wants to stop people from using their cellphones while they're driving. Why? Because the attention they're paying to their conversations is attention they're not paying to driving safely (cf. my post re cabbies and cellphones). They're distracted, and being distracted is bad.

Am I to infer from this that it's okay, though, for a police officer to be distracted while coordinating the movements of eight or ten vehicles at once?

Oh, and before you ask: the conversation wasn't a life-and-death matter, either. I think I heard something about groceries.