coldrainwater wrote:I definitely would like to see a whole thread on listening while driving as it has many facets to explore.
I thought I would grant your wish!
Personally I do a huge amount of listening and driving. I put about 50k miles a year on my car. So I have gained some in sites into this. The best cars to have in descending order:
- Car with Bluetooth
- Car with Aux Cable
- Car with Data CD Player (does mp3's)
- Car with CD
If you don't have a car with bluetooth, I've found a speaker ball and some velcro works! I use a smartphone and a number of apps to help me out.
- MyPOD - used to subscribe to rss feeds for both audio and video. Apple phones have a rudimentary version of podcast software called iTunes.
- VLC for Android - used to watch films and listen to audio. There really isn't any substitute for this if you want to use a film while driving because it will let you play the audio while blanking the screen. Thus turning a film into an audiobook. Don't know if there is a VLC for Apple.
The key thing is under no circumstances should you be able to see anything on the screen while driving, to much risk of a distraction. Also loop-repeat everything. Listen to the same thing over and over again when your driving because you're not always going to be able to pay attention since driving is your primary concern. If you know you're going to hear this again four more times before the journey is out, you don't get so stressed about missing things.
I did try using Pimsleur while driving, but I found because the course is actually designed to require concentration and thought it isn't really all that great while driving, so I gave it a miss. I'd recommend Pimsluer while walking.
If you're going to use VLC to listen to a film you'll need to go into the settings and make sure that it is configured to continue to play even if it losses focus. This way you can start the film and flip over to google maps, or the home screen and the audio will continue to play.
The best things to listen to IMHO are podcasts in your TL. They are almost invariably talk and will not require any setting changes to the podcast software. You can also (at least on MyPOD) listen to a channel and it will just move on to the next podcast on the channel automatically. Audiobooks are also great although not so cheap and easy to get. For me the wide variety of podcasts wins over audiobooks and the price is much better!