There you are sitting outside at the Starbucks at 18 Street and Columbia Road NW. You don’t usually support these big corporate enterprises even if they have cute ads and tout environmentally conscious rhetoric. But the small shop down the street feels like a large office: people on laptops; networking; or plotting some takeover of the government. So you landed here, at Starbucks, because there’s outdoor seating.
You’re drinking your grande, which is actually a medium and in keeping with the fake counterculture stuff the company promotes as a way of persuading customers that they are involved in some kind of revolution. (Whoa! You’re seriously digressing.)
Anyway, you’re sipping your Mocha light Frappuccino and checking out neighborhood folks, when a Metropolitan Police Department car stops at the corner. The officer inside is on his cell phone. He isn’t using a hands-free device. You make a mental note.
Before you old brain can fully record the information, another police car pulls up. That officer also is on the cell phone and he also isn’t using a hands free device. This time you write down the car number: 9012; the time 1:20 p.m.; and date: July 25.
Are they talking to each other? Why are they in cars and not walking the street? Wasn’t there a shooting in this neighborhood only a week ago and in broad daylight? Equally important, how can police officers enforce the city’s cell phone law when they are violating it?
God knows how many drivers you see each day nearly knocking down pedestrians or crashing into parked cars because they are on their cell phones. Tons of experts have attested to the fact that talking on the cell phone while driving is like trying to put on makeup: It’s dangerous to everyone’s health.
The D.C. Council was so persuaded by the argument, it passed legislation making it illegal to use a cell phone in the District without a hands free device. But is anyone enforcing the law? Apparently not.
MPD spokesperson Kenny Bryson says that the “Distracted Driving Safety Act of 2004” applies to all MPD members, and that they are prohibited from using “a personal electronic device or mobile telephone, not equipped with a hands-free device, while operating a departmental vehicle, a vehicle leased by the department or a personal vehicle while on government business.
“The only time a member may use a mobile telephone not equipped with a hands-free device is during an emergency,” Bryson continues. “If a violation is brought to our attention, we’ll check into it.
“We expect them to enforce the law as well as obey the law,” he adds.
You smile. A bunch of city laws aren’t enforced: anti-loitering, anti-public drinking, and anti-panhandling. Sweating the petty stuff often prevents big crimes.
Still, those are MPD’s comments. You serve them, now, with a side of Starbucks jargon. Enjoy!
Jonetta Rose Barras, an author and political analyst, can be reached at [email protected]
