Hands Free Car Kits
What are hands free car kits?
A hands free car kit is a device which enables the user to speak on a mobile phone without having it to their ear. These became more important within vehicles when legislation was introduced to stop drivers using their mobile phone whilst driving in 2003. Recently, in February 2007 the need for a hands free car kit increased greatly due to new changes in the law. The previous fine of £30 was increased to £60 and three penalty points will now be applied to your licence.
The laws were introduced due to studies conducted, showing that people using their mobile phones were four times more likely to have an accident. Although, hands free is not completely effective in diverting distraction it certainly reduces the likelihood of an accident. A survey conducted by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents said up to 23 deaths over the past seven years were attributable to mobile phone misuse.
Portable Kits
Portable kits were introduced in order to offer a hands free solution to drivers who used their handset on a regular basis within the vehicle. The kits were useful as they were easy to use and cost effective.
Personal hands free car kits provided a driver with hands free calls by simply using a headset and a wire attached to the handset. Bluetooth headsets eliminated the use for the wire and became more universal as more handsets were integrated with Bluetooth. Plug in hands free car kits supplied the driver with a charging facility to avoid the battery running out during the course of a day.
These kits were cheap and easy to use but the introduction of stricter legislation made more functional hands free car kits a necessity, especially for those drivers who used their handsets within their vehicle throughout the day.
Hard-wired car kit
Hard-wired car kits are becoming more popular and essential due to stricter mobile phone legislation. Drivers began to require more from their hands free car kits, functions that portable kits were unable to provide. Features such as charging facility, integrated audio, holding the handset in a fixed position and a lack of trailing wires became more desired.
Cradle car kits were introduced by the manufacturer of some handsets to hold and charge the phone as well as being incorporated through the vehicles stereo. The obvious limitation of these hands free car kits were if the driver were to change their handset to that of a different manufacturer then they would need to replace the whole car kit.
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