In-car MP3 to be legal by end of year

Music fans will soon be able to use their MP3 players while behind the wheel, safe in the knowledge they are not breaking the law.

Electronic devices that allow drivers to listen to music players through their car radios are to be made legal by the end of the year, the Communications regulator said. It is expected they will be on sale in shops for Christmas.

ComReg said last week the move was in line with other European countries and should be in place by the end of the year.

"This is being done on a pan-European basis. Some countries are slightly ahead and some slightly behind," a ComReg spokesman said.

He added that a three-month consultation process had to be gone through but did not foresee any objections. "All going well it will be through in December, but it is not possible to give a specific date," the spokesman said.

The devices can be plugged into the music players and give out a low-powered radio transmission that is picked up on a defined frequency on the car's radio.

They have been illegal to date because they technically breach rules governing radio broadcasting and were considered to be akin to mini-pirate radio stations.

The ComReg spokesman said the move to legalise them was "in response to popular demand" and because there was no real danger of interference with radio frequencies. But he added: "Devices should come with a CE stamp so consumers know them meet requisite EU standards."

FM transmitters are already legal in the United States and in some European countries. Their use in Ireland is believed to be already widespread as they can be bought over the Internet.

A spokesman for Dixons Dublin said they had not yet put the devices on sale. "When they become legal we'll sell them. We're getting about 10 enquiries a day about them," he told The Irish Times.

"We are waiting for our legal department to come back on it." He said most car radios cannot be removed from the car's interior panels and therefore do not allow wires to be plugged into the back of them from the music player.

The most recent catalogue published by German retailer Lidl contains an advertisement for a transmitter on sale in Irish shops. A spokeswoman for the supermarket said it did not release comments to the media.

Those who buy the new devices will be interested to note recent comments by researchers at Monash University in Australia that, "using the car music system may have the greatest impact on driving performance," over and above mobile phone use.