Stormin Mormon wrote:

That's really sad. It's the end of an era for drivers.


Hardly, just the end of holding a microphone in one hand
and driving with the other. And only in that part of the
world. Hands-free options have been about for years, but
we have not been forced to use it.


Perhaps the CB makers will spring up with hands free CB, to
fill the need.


VOX equipment has been around for decades. Now TTI manufacture
a hands-free device.

The problem may be marketing. CB is now a small market, so
manufacturers do not push their products like other companies do.
There is no money for high impact advertising, so I guess that
many people do not know about the options available. That
appears to include the law-makers, who have left a period for
adjustment in the belief that there are no hands-free options
for CB.

So truckers can continue to hold the microphone in one hand and
a Yorkie bar* in the other, steering with their elbows. The only
reason for hands-free kit is that they have run out of hands to
operate the mobile phone with :~)


BTW: The Canadian law also allows police and other emergency
services to continue to combine driving with using the radio.
Clearly it's not dangerous when driving at high speed in an
emergency.


Regards,
Peter.
http://www.bandwidth.radiouk.com/
http://www.citizensband.radiouk.com/

* Brits who remember the 1970s will get this side-swipe at
the chocolate adverts. A TV advert showed truckers as
good looking, chocolate munching (yet not overweight) knights
of the road. Women of the day really believed this image,
blissfully unaware that truckers only ever let lady drivers pass
so that they ogle them and stare at their knockers - saving the
trucker the price of paying a pavement princess for a quick peek.
(A later campaign made it clear that this chocolate was "not
for girls", even printing the slogan on the wrappers - for which
they got in trouble.)