Bluetooth headsets being illegal in France

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS EURO DRIVING FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
1

I have never driving a truck in France but I want to be prepared as I will be at some point and now the country has outlawed using bluetooth headsets while driving, I’d like to know of a good alternative?

I’ve got one of these -

amazon.co.uk/SuperTooth-BTB … ay&sr=8-34

-A visor bluetooth device that you can clip onto your seat belt, but the sound for you and the person you’re talking to isn’t great, and if you clip it onto your shirt, it falls off really easily when you’re walking about outside. Ideally I’d like a tie clip microphone as that’s the only way I can get my voice sounding clear to the other person, but a wired one I think is impossible as I use the smartphone’s 3.5m socket for my auxiliary out for sending audiobooks to the cab hifi and when I tried a pass-thru cable it didn’t work well at all, I don’t know why not as in theory it should have done.

My friend has a factory fitted bluetooth system in her car and she sounds as clear as a bell even tho her mic is far away from her mouth, but I’ve not been able to replicate this in my own car and in a truck I think it’s going to be even more difficult with all the additional environmental noise. I’ve wondered about a shotgun microphone but this would probably be too bulky, and you couldn’t carry on talking if you get out of the cab.

Another option of course is to just wear a discrete earpiece and hope I get away with it, but I really don’t want to do that.

A possibly intractable problem but if anyone has any suggestions I’d be most grateful. I really can’t see the point of this law as if you have someone sitting in the passenger seat it’s not illegal to talk to them, but it’s no different to talking to someone on a headset in terms of it affecting your ability to concentrate. I just tell whoever I’m talking to that I need to stop talking for a bit whenever I get to a roundabout or tricky junction.

2

If you are talking a prawn in your ear, they should be banned everywhere!

I haven’t driven any vehicle built since about 2012 that hasn’t had factory fitted Bluetooth / telephone

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

3

Yeh that is a really good point. When I drove for DHL in England the factory fitted bluetooth had been disabled so I just grew to accept that as the norm - but it probably isn’t!

4

wanderingstar:
Yeh that is a really good point. When I drove for DHL in England the factory fitted bluetooth had been disabled so I just grew to accept that as the norm - but it probably isn’t!

Why on earth would the bluetooth be disabled?
After all, the bosses phone often enough while we’re driving, and everyone knows hand holding your phone is points and a big fine.
It doesn’t make sense, to me.
If a driver doesn’t like using the built in bluetooth, just don’t use it, it seems as simple as that.

5

DHL policy was that you never use a phone while driving, even if it’s thru the built-in system. But they took calls from us from our headsets while we were driving and rang us while we were driving. It was an official policy, but everyone knew it was flouted.

6

i use an avantalk from tescos, had it for years, you can have two phones installed, no good outside the truck though, good volume and internal mike, cheap as chips and it works for me. plug it in, Bluetooth it to the phones, off you go, with its big clip you could use it like an earing. I just clip it on the dash.

7

Thanks so much - I just had a look and it looks really good. Fantastic reviews on Amazon too! Thanks for the recommendation. Much appreciated.