Strange Disability Cane Thing?

Sorry if this post makes me sound ignorant, but I just don't understand what this is, and I am curious.

Sometimes I will see someone holding what looks like one of those canes that blind people use to help themselves get around.

However, instead of passing it back and forth along the pavement, like I am used to seeing blind people do, they hold it up in the air in front of them like they are about to jab someone with it.

I've seen people hold it straight ahead of them as they are walking, and I've seen people wave it back and forth in the air in front of them.

A man was waving a cane like this in the air the other day and he came up to me and asked me for directions. He was wearing glasses (normal glasses, not super thick glasses) and was not blind.

I never saw anything like this in the US. I have seen blind people using canes the normal way, sweeping them back and forth along the pavement, in both countries.

Can someone explain to me what these canes are for? It seems dangerous to be walking along a city pavement pointing a cane in front of you like a weapon.

Sounds like a walking stick to me. I saw them in the States a lot. I've seen them here only when Ramblers were walking in the countryside.

It is just another method of using a cane for the visually impaired. There are symbol canes to let others know that an individual is visually impaired and guide canes that are used in the way you have described.

It's also possible to be legally blind and still wear glasses.

It's also possible to be legally blind and still wear glasses.

I know, but in this case this person was speaking to me directly and looking at me straight in the face. He spotted me and walked over to me when he was quite a distance away from me.

I'm shortsighted (badly but nowhere near legally blind) and I couldn't focus as well as he seemed to do without my glasses. And as I said, his weren't thick glasses.

Even if he was legally blind, as are the other people I've seen wielding canes like this, it does seem very dangerous to walk around holding them directly in front of you, pointing forwards. What if you are on a crowded street and someone is accidently pushed towards you? They could be stabbed in the chest, or they could push the cane backwards so you get stabbed in the chest.

ETA: Definitely not walking sticks.

... and I've seen people wave it back and forth in the air in front of them.

Ahh yes, I see these people all the time ...

They're conductors