You’d better not be reading this while driving.
On Jan. 1, Austin and San Antonio, Texas, joined other towns across the country with a hands-free law that prohibits not only texting and driving, but holding a digital device while driving or cycling for any reason.
This and similar laws have prompted many to either change their driving habits or to upgrade their car’s technology to comply with the law. Scott Miller, general manager of the Southpark Meadows Best Buy store in South Austin, says that even before Christmas, sales of Bluetooth-enabled devices for use in the car were extremely strong.
“It’s taken us a little bit of time to get back in stock, but now we’re in pretty good shape,” said Miller. He gave his 18- and 21-year-old daughters Bluetooth earpieces to use while driving and last week had a device installed in his 2012 Honda Accord to add wireless capabilities.
Marcelo Teson, a teaching artist who helps teens learn about filmmaking at Austin’s Creative Action, has an Android smart watch, but his 2002 Volkswagen’s car stereo was still stuck in the cassette era. For Christmas, he received gifts of a dashboard mount for his phone to use for GPS navigation and a cassette adapter to add Bluetooth to his car stereo.
He says he’s in favor of the hands-free law and hopes others will follow suit. “It’s really inconvenient, but it has gotten so bad out there,” Teson said. “People just swerving, drifting into lanes, cutting people off and all of them looking down at their phones. … I hope it’s heavily enforced and results in real change.”
The absolute safest and cheapest option to comply with the law is simply not to use your phone while driving. You could stick it in the trunk or somewhere else out of reach if you really worry you won’t be able to resist the temptation to make a call or check text messages.
But drivers who worry they might miss an emergency phone call or whose jobs depend on continual contact while on the road (say, professional drivers or real estate agents) have plenty of options that may not be as safe as driving completely without distraction but at least won’t draw a hefty fine. Here are pros and cons for some of those options.
Option No. 1: A new car
If you’ve been thinking about getting a new car or are in the process of buying a new one, ask about Bluetooth options; many new cars have at least some rudimentary hands-free voice calling feature standard.
If you’re buying a new car for no reason other than to avoid the hassle of adding Bluetooth to your system, you must have a lot of money. Must be nice!
Pro: Most likely to give you an integrated hands-free experience.
Con: Expensive! Especially if you get that vehicle undercoat!
Option No. 2: An earpiece
If your car doesn’t have Bluetooth capabilities and you want a way to keep phone conversations going after you get out of the car, you could use a wireless earpiece or buy a nice one for anywhere from around $30 to $100. If your car has Bluetooth built-in, the earpiece may be able to send audio to the car stereo.
Miller says that’s usually where customers start when they come to his store seeking a Bluetooth solution to their dilemma. He suggests that a set of Bluetooth-enabled headphones may be a better solution, as those can also be used for exercising. But make sure to keep one ear clear to hear emergency vehicles and other road sounds.
Note: If you already own a set of regular earbuds, especially a set that came with a device such as an iPhone, it may already have a microphone built in and controls to answer or end a call.
Pro: Works with most smart phones.
Con: Likely to look pretty dorky. Requires recharging. Easy to lose and can be distracting to adjust on the ear or press buttons on it while driving.
Option No. 3: A new stereo or installed upgrade
Keith Pearson, a car audio system installer who works with Miller at the Southpark Meadows Best Buy, says that more than three-fourths of the installs he’s been doing since the holidays have been related to the law change and adding Bluetooth.
“Pretty much everything we do now is integrating Bluetooth for customers,” Pearson said. “People know the law exists, there is no doubt. They’re saying fines are up to $500 and, for a couple of hundred dollars, you can avoid that.”
Customers are choosing to either replace their old car decks with new ones or to add devices such as those made by iSimple, which can add Bluetooth to a car audio system for about $200 installed.
Some of those devices are specific to a car manufacturer and involve connecting a Bluetooth unit and running a microphone to a visor for hands-free calling.
Pro: A more integrated solution than most.
Con: Can be pricier than a lower-tech solution.
Option No. 4: A visor-clip device
Companies including Motorola, Jabra and BlueAnt make Bluetooth devices for phone calls that put everything into one device, including an integrated speaker and microphone that typically clips onto your car visor or sits on the dash.
Miller says these add-on devices are flying off shelves, but even though they may be a legal solution, “it’s not optimal.”
Pro: They can be cheaper than installed products at around $50-$100.
Con: They typically won't run through a car stereo and their sound quality can vary. They also require recharging or a power source in the car and are not meant for music.
Option No. 5: Suction cups and self-restraint
Technically, there’s no law against using a smart phone or, say, a GPS device, in view while driving as long as it’s mounted to the car in some way. That could take the form of a suction cup that mounts on the inside of the windshield or something that clips to an A/C vent.
With some phones having so many capabilities on their own for navigation and talking by speaker, that may be all some people need. These cheaper items were hot sellers at Best Buy.
“They were extremely popular,” Miller said. “We’ve been working every day to get those back in stock.”
Pro: Cheap, with some of these mounts costing under $20.
Con: Doesn't really solve the issue of distracted driving. Creates a lot of temptation to keep using a cell phone in transit.
As stated before, no idea that involves using a cell phone while driving is going to be safer than not using it at all, whatever the state of the law may be. But for those who must stay plugged in and are worried about getting pulled over and fined next month, spending a few dollars now may be the smarter move.
While interviewing Miller, a customer at Best Buy on Arnez Street stopped to ask about two of the products we were discussing in hopes of finding Bluetooth upgrades for his friend and for his wife.
Eying a visor-mounted upgrade, Street said, “It’s cheaper to buy that than to get a ticket.”
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