Are you driving illegally? Did you know July 1st is when the new law goes into effect that requires you to use some kind of hands free device with your cell phone while you are driving on Oahu? Actually it prohibits you from holding many common electronic device while you operating a vehicle. The City and County of Honolulu and Mayor Mufi Hannemann passed the law this past session.
So should you run out and buy an expensive Bluetooth headset? Maybe but you do have a few choices. Let me list them from the cheapest to the most expensive:
- Get rid of your cell phone and use pay phones or a landline phones.
- Park your car if you need to use your cell phone.
- Use your cell phone's speaker phone with a holder
- Buy a corded headset
- Buy a wireless headset or external speakerphone
- Use a built-in car speaker phone
The main factor to determine what is best for you is how often you will use your cell phone while you are driving? If you seldom use it, you probably could live with method one or two. If you use your cell phone a fair amount, methods three to six would be the best. Another factor of course is cost. Cord headsets are a lot cheaper (range $5 to $30) than the wireless headsets ($20 to $150).
The cord headsets are easy to use because you basically need to find a compatible headset (usually all you need know is the brand/model), find the jack on your phone and plug it in. However, a drawback of a wired headset is the possibility of you getting tangled up with the cord.
Besides being more expensive, the set up for a wireless headset is more difficult. Most wireless headsets use Bluetooth technology to transmit to and from the cell phone. Because you want only your headset to connect to your phone, the Bluetooth headset requires you to go through a sometime difficult procedure called “pairing”. It’s not too difficult to do once you get the hang of it but for the less technically inclined, it may be a frustrating task. If you really want one of these and can’t figure out how to do it, just ask your friendly neighborhood techie.
As for cell phone speakerphones, they usually work marginally well in cars because of the noise from the car or surroundings. They work better the closer the phone is to you. External speakerphone devices work much like wireless headsets except they are little devices that mount to your dash or visor. These have same issues as the built in cell phone speakerphone and usually require you to connect them using the wireless “pairing” procedure. The last type of speakerphones is built into the car. These are usually optimized for the environment so they sound better. The ones that work the best come already installed from the car manufacturer. However, there are some after market systems which could be professionally installed at an auto electronic shop.
Like most anything these days, there are many styles and colors. How do you know what is good or not? You could do some Internet research by Googling “best Bluetooth headset” or asking a local store with knowledgeable sales people (e.g. Radio Shack, Best Buy). Here are some links below that will help decide what brands and models are rated well:
Also to be totally compliant with the new law, you also need some kind of cell phone mount/holder (because you can’t hold the phone in your hand). You could leave the cell phone on the seat but that would make it hard and dangerous when you trying to dial. Some new phones have a feature called “voice dialing” which allows you to press one button to get the phone to prompt you for the caller’s name which it will look up in its phone directory. In addition, if you have not tried Google’s 411 you should. It’s a free automated directory assistant service for businesses which is totally voice activated and will connect you in the end to your desire destination.
In any case, don’t wait long to get a hands free device if you don’t have one already. Not only do you risk getting a fine but it will make it safer for you and could possibly save your life.
