I like to listen mostly to podcasts from my phone as I drive. I have read the research on phone use and driving, and I have been mostly very careful not to be messing with the phone while the car is moving.
But ... My phone is 3 years old now, and the formerly 3.5mm receptor for audio plugs is now 3.77mm or something, anyway big enough that the receptor can jiggle out when the car hits a bump. This is not only highly aggravating; it also tempts me to fix the situation while the car is moving.
My wife's car has bluetooth, and that solves the problem ... play the audio through bluetooth and you can set it and forget it!
One nuance of bluetooth that I was not expecting: even in Do Not Disturb mode, the phone will still ring via bluetooth. On my phone, I have to set my phone to Total Silence to turn this off, which keeps me from podcasts ... I don't have a good solution to this except for ignoring the phone's rings when driving. [UPDATE: I found this in the Android Settings for Bluetooth
My phone's menu is similar ... just unselect the Phone Calls menu item!]
I finally realized that I could buy a bluetooth speaker for my non-bluetooth-enabled car and have the same benefits there. I found this one:
One thing I hadn't expected: I was listening to a podcast when driving and got this BOOP BOOP sound, first thinking it was on the podcast. But no, it happened repeatedly. Turned out it was the speaker crying "CHARGE MY BATTERY!" ... Otherwise it boops saying THAT"S AS LOUD AS I CAN GO, SORRY.
Overall, for $19 well worth and much safer than trying to get the phone to stay connected in its increasingly widening connector.
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