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On June 28, 2019, an extension to the ban on holding a mobile phone in traffic was published in the Official Gazette of the Order in Council. This decision entered into force three days later, on 1 July 2019. The decree regulates what has come to be called the 'app ban on the bicycle', but the extension of the ban is broader. Article 61a Rvv now reads:
Anyone driving a vehicle is prohibited from holding a mobile electronic device that can be used for communication or information processing while driving. A mobile electronic device is in any case understood to be a mobile phone, a tablet computer or a media player.
At Firecom we regularly get the question whether you can use a walkie-talkie or mobile phone while driving. The emergency services also use this equipment to communicate. When reading the amendment you would quickly conclude that walkie-talkies and mobile radios also fall under this equipment. However, the decree specifically takes into account the use of mission-critical communication equipment for emergency services. The following paragraph answers the question whether it is permissible to use this equipment.
Smartwatches are also covered by the term mobile electronic device. Wearing such equipment on your wrist, however, does not fall under the concept of “holding”. This also applies to other equipment that is intended to be worn on or near the body. Even such equipment, if it is indeed worn on or on the body, is not held in the sense of Article 61a RVV. Nor is there holding if someone occasionally operates a mobile electronic device via a button on a cord. The speech key of a mobile phone or 27MC coffee machine built into the vehicle does not fall under the term mobile electronic device.
From this text we can conclude that the use of a walkie-talkie or mobile phone in combination with a loudspeaker microphone (also called RSM or shoulder microphone) is permitted. Firecom has shoulder microphones in its range for all brands of walkie-talkies. Check out the category below to view all of our shoulder microphones.
