Make calls from your car

A fine of PLN 200 threatens a driver who uses a mobile phone while driving a car, holding it in his hand. This penalty is fairly easy to avoid.

According to the rules of the road, it is forbidden to use the phone while driving, requiring the driver to hold the handset or microphone in his hand. This ban is in force in Poland, as well as in more than 40 other European countries. The solution is to use headphones and speakers, which we have in abundance on the market.

The easiest and cheapest way to avoid a fine is to buy a phone holder and use the camera's built-in speaker. This allows you to make calls without holding the handset to your ear. Select an interlocutor by pressing the corresponding button on the phone and saying one of the voice commands assigned to a specific number (for example, mom, company, Tomek). The handles can be glued to the windshield or center panel of the car, and their price starts from about PLN 2.

The disadvantage of this solution is the low quality of the conversation. The speakers in the phones are not very powerful, which is why we hear the interlocutor badly, and he - due to interference (engine noise, music from the radio) - hears us badly.

Wired headsets are also cheap. Increasingly, they are a free addition to the phone you buy. If not, you can buy them for as low as PLN 8. Depending on the type of phone (brand/model), one or two earphones are included in the package. The microphone is most often placed on the cable that connects the headphones to the phone. The disadvantage of wired headsets is the range limited by the cable, the possibility of tangling wires and not the best sound quality.

Bluetooth headphones (which also act as a microphone) don't have these inconveniences. They are connected to the phone wirelessly, and the sound from the phone to the handset (and vice versa) is transmitted using radio signals with a range of about 10 m. The conversation is established using the button on the handset and by issuing voice commands. You can also adjust the conversation volume. More advanced headphones have processors that eliminate background noise and reduce echoes, and automatically adjust headphone volume and microphone sensitivity to match ambient volume. The cheapest Bluetooth headphones cost around PLN 50.

If someone doesn't like using headphones, they can opt for a hands-free kit that connects to the phone via bluetooth. It is more expensive, but has more features and provides better call quality. In addition to dialing a number by voice command, it is possible, for example, to display the name and photo of the caller. Some devices have a speech synthesizer, thanks to which they tell by voice who is calling the driver, reading information about the number and its owner from the phone book. Thanks to this solution, the driver does not need to look at the display and not be distracted.

Advanced hands-free kits are additionally equipped with satellite navigation.

The car stereo can also be used as a speakerphone. In this case, there are two options: either insert a SIM card from our phone into the head unit, or connect the radio tape recorder to the phone via bluetooth. In both cases, we hear the interlocutor in the car's speakers, speak with him through a microphone (it must be installed separately, preferably on the left front pillar of the car), and the phone is controlled using the radio buttons. If it has a large display, we can view SMS and phone book.

Attention! Danger!

The probability of having an accident while driving increases up to six times during the first seconds of a telephone conversation. When answering a call, the driver is distracted for five seconds, and at a speed of 100 km / h. the car travels almost 140 m during this time. It takes an average of 12 seconds for the driver to dial the number, during which the car travels at a speed of 100 km/h. travels as much as 330 m.

Zbigniew Veseli, director of Renault driving school

Data from the European Commission shows that 9 out of 10 Poles have mobile phones. However, the number of hands-free kits does not match the number of mobile phones and is much less. It follows that a significant part of drivers, using a mobile phone while driving, exposes themselves to distraction, and therefore increases the risk on the road. During a conversation, the field of view narrows significantly, reactions slow down, and the trajectory of the car becomes slightly uneven. This is confirmed by the drivers themselves, who admit that talking on a mobile phone is the factor that most distracts them while driving, even if they use a speakerphone or headset. So it's better to stop by the side of the road and then talk.