THE holy month of Ramadan begins next week and that means that some of the most horrific automobile crashes of the year are just days away. Fasting drivers may not be at their best in terms of attention to the road. They might be drowsy due to changes in sleep patterns. The hours before sunset are especially dangerous with many fasting drivers hurrying to buy foodstuffs or reach an iftar party on time.
Now add to this dangerous situation the cell phone. Popular as mobile phones are, they can be deadly when used while driving. A simulation study from the University of Utah Professor David Strayer compared drivers with a blood alcohol content of 0.08 percent to those conversing on a cell phone, and after controlling for driving difficulty and time on task, the study concluded that the cell phone drivers exhibited greater impairment than the intoxicated drivers. The latest studies do not even support the use of hands-free devices while driving. Meta-analysis by the Canadian Automobile Association and the University of Illinois found that driver response time in a vehicle while using both hands-free and hand-held phones was approximately the same.
Cell phone use while driving has recently been made illegal in Saudi Arabia, although it is still considered acceptable to use a mobile phone with a hands-free device. That noted, it can be difficult to convince young drivers about the dangers of cell phone use while on the road. Many even text while behind the wheel. If there is a young driver at your house, take a look together at the videos produced as part of the Bridgestone Safety Scholars Video Contest (www.safetyscholars.com). In the contest, students, ages 16-21, were asked to create public service videos about the consequences of driving recklessly. Cell phone usage in a vehicle and not wearing a seat belt were the main focus of the four winning entries. The videos are unusual.
Drivers who still intend to use a cell phone in their vehicles in the Kingdom need to do so hands-free to be driving legal. Most new cars come with a Bluetooth kit as an option at purchase. There are also nice Bluetooth car hands-free devices on the market that can be used with older vehicles and some of these do not even require installation.
Check out two from Motorola. The MOTOROKR T505 is a portable hands-free speaker, which handles both voice calls and music. It allows high-quality audio conversations in even the noisiest environment and the car’s speaker system is used for surround sound conversation. The MOTOROKR T505 offers audio caller ID and clips to the visor. A more stripped down hands-free device is the Motorola Portable speaker T305. This is an entry-level hands-free speaker. It clips to the visor and comes with a universal phone holder and car charger.
Two other no installation hands-free options come from Sony Ericsson. The Sony Ericsson HCB-150 is one of the nicest looking hands-free devices available. It is designed for upmarket vehicles. It has a long talk time/standby time of 25/700 hours. Its OLED display shows the caller’s name while a voice announces it. It can also talk you through the contact names in your phone book. The Sony Ericsson Bluetooth car hands-free HCB-105 features digital signal processing (DSP) for automatic background noise cancellation and echo reduction. Although it is low priced, it still has 25/700 hours talk time/standby.
And for those car owners who are interested in something a cut above the rest, consider the Parrot RK8200. This is an FM/AM RDS car stereo with all the connections to play digital and analogue music. It is also a Bluetooth hands-free kit. Equipped with sophisticated telephony functions, it has a smart interface and the broadest set of features available on the market: An SD card reader, a USB port for flash drives and MP3 players, a line-in socket for analogue sources, a specific iPod connector and Bluetooth stereo wireless technology. With its internal memory it can store over 300 MP3 tracks.
But once again, even though there are plenty of great technology solutions to handle phone calls hands-free in a vehicle — the best thing to do if you have to take a call while in the car is to pull off the road until you finish talking.
