A recent Idea! ad generated some controversy about talking on the cell phone while walking. People protested that it was contrary to Road safety.
This is not unusual - in India, collectively people have decided that pedestrians are to blame for their own deaths or loss of limb. The other day, I saw a girl crossing a junction with no signal - she was talking on the cellphone. A passing scooterist speeded up on seeing her, came very close, and yelled at her for talking on the cellphone while crossing.
This seems completely weird to me - what these people are seeking is a justification that the roads belong to vehicles; vehicles have right of way in unmarked crossings.
To me, it is perfectly ok to talk on the cellphone while crossing an unmarked (no-signal) crossing.
Refer to my post on pedestrian rights here - I think what vehicle owners are out to do is to cheat and bully pedestrians out of their right to walk freely in the road.
Indian cities are not pedestrian friendly - there are no sidewalks and most crossings have no signals. In this situation, pedestrians have right of way in unmarked crossings.
What is wrong with walking while talking on the cellphone? Pedestrians do not need licenses to walk on the roads. They are perfectly within their rights to talk on the cellphone while walking.
This whole myth of "oh the evil pedestrians mess up traffic" is a product of plain thuggery. What these people want you to believe is that pedestrians would simply stop and chat on the middle of the road. As we all know, this assumes that vehicle owners are reasonable people who mind their business while pedestrians are somehow loafers with nothing to do.
The true factor behind such idiocies is that vehicle owners believe that they have potent weapons (their vehicles) which can cause irreparable harm to a pedestrians' life. So they are using this bullying tactic to deny pedestrians their rights - in reality, this is the age-old Indian trends of abuse of power and blaming the victim.
I hate people who provide an intellectual justification for such power-abusers.
In reality Road-safety in the Indian context has nothing to do with pedestrians - it has to do with drivers who respect no rules and are ignorant of other people's rights; and roads which force pedestrians to share space with vehicles.
Meanwhile pedestrians have every right to talk while walking.

Source: Writing, Is? Fun!