Anything that takes attention away from driving increases danger.
Are they more dangerous than older interfaces? My feeling is overwhelmingly yes, but I would be willing to see a study or hear arguments that some touchscreens are an improvement. A touch interface is fine (not great) as long as it never changes. As soon as you have to search for a control or menu you are dividing your attention away from driving.
They're just terrible UX for the inside of a vehicle you're driving.
Specifically, text. Reading is "hard". Even things as simple as the title of the song on the radio. Especially when the text changes.
I have a modern LCD on my motorcycle, a BMW, that uses a WonderWheel (rotate to scroll up/down, and push or pull for right/left click) as an interface. It's very reminiscent of The Onions MacBook Wheel[0]. It is absolutely dangerous to use while riding. It's a cognitive black hole.
Obviously, the LCD is not alone in this case, the interaction pushes it all up to eleven. But the old school car interface was numbers and small words, and, eventually icons. Consider changing the temperature in a car, for me, I'd shove the hot/cold slider around until the air coming the from the vent was comfortable vs clicking up and down and deciding "do I want 72 or 73?".
And, yea, maybe it's just me. Perhaps I alone am a hazard when interacting with these things. So, maybe it's not fair for me to project my experiences to the population at large.
However, it is very person dependent. Personally, I am one of the fastest readers I know.
It's also day dependent. I've had days where my ability to focus switch is significantly impaired.
The big issue is that while there are people that touch screens are not going to impair their driving, you can't gear your system to them.
You have to aim it at the lowest common denominator.
Personally, I am a fan of my current vehicle which while being at 2015 because it's one of the police interceptors still has the basic ish radio. And has twist knobs for volume, tune, fan speed and temperature.
And while I probably wouldn't mind having the actual Ford sync stuff, I don't find myself missing it either.
- Have you benchmarked your speed on text vs non-text controls that are otherwise equivalent? (i.e. both are button presses, both are always in the exact same location, ...)? - Have you benchmarked how this changes as you loose the similarities? Does this benchmark measure "time to complete task" or "time spent looking at control" (turning a physical knob vs a screen slider) - have you benchmarked your speed for fixed-location controls vs controls which may be buried in a menu item on a touch-screen?
Do these benchmarks change if the control has delayed onset (pressing "play" takes 2 seconds to start the music, and you get no tactile response to tell you if you have successful pressed the button or not)
Have you benchmarked how these skill comparisons decay with impairment? Do they decay equally, or does the text-based skill decay faster?
Look, given this is HN I fully believe you are in the upper 99% on several aspects, making you with text controls faster than me with manual. But the question is would YOU be faster with text or manual? And how consistent is this?
In short: various studies show that touchscreens draw attention of the driver for longer, so they are more dangerous at speed.
European agencies noticed and started requiring physical dedicated switches for certain most important functions to get a full safety rating.
Car makers also gradually revert to physical switches, and also push voice control for certain functions.
The question isn't whether they're dangerous, anymore.
The question is, when is safety legislation going to be passed that prevents them from being used for any routine adjustments while driving. I.e. windshield wipers, AC, change volume, skip to next track, etc.
Like it's fine if you still use them to input a GPS destination, change long-term car settings, connect a Bluetooth device, etc.
But we need to separate out the actions routinely used during driving and legislate physical controls. Why is there not legislation for this already?
Cars that dont kill their drivers are more likely to have repeat customers; i.e. other factors besides legislation will force car manufacterers to shift their designs back to this approach. My 2024 CRV has exactly what you describe.
I have a libertarian streak when it comes to drugs, porn/prostitution, free speech, patent law, etc. but in this case I’m perfectly fine with governments “getting involved” to ensure that I can shop for a vehicle without becoming a random sample in a statistical study of car safety. Especially if a possible outcome is my preventable death.
100% rational and 100% informed consumers do not exist. There's both information asymmetry between manufacturers and consumers. I'm sure there's man fatal accidents that can be traced back to faulty components and improper design that gets covered up by manufacturers. The Volkswagen emissions scandal was just easily measurable.
Everyone likes it that way. Consumers are attracted to features, gimmicks and marketing because that's what works for marketing and sells. No one wants to buy a "900% less accidents than others" car. But everyone wants a bluetooth and wifi enabled car with seat subscriptions. Besides, what's a rational consumer gotta do? They gotta get up at 06:30 and make breakfast for little Timmy and take him to daycare. They need a new car by the end of the month so they better choose between big touch screen or little touch screen with a control knob.
If I can't get a dumb TV, I just don't buy a dumb TV or watch any TV at all. But you can't not travel by car.
furthermore there does not seem to be any great brand loyalty in the market
https://cardealermagazine.co.uk/automotive-consumers-more-di...
maybe because of being afraid of dying but probably not, but given how often people buy new cars (not that often) and the lack of loyalty, I think it would not make any sense from a business perspective to give a damn if the customers die (disregarding moral perspective which I'm sure is a primary concern for automotive manufacturers)
... also, whether I purchase it or not makes little difference if I am the pedestrian killed by some other driver who was sold an unsafe vehicle.
When it comes to safety regulations, it's definitely not "if you don't like it don't buy it".
Also, if you're distracted and get in a crash, you're not the only one who dies. It's your passengers and the people in the car you collide with that might die as well.
The people within automobiles are the people who I am least concerned about since they are encased by a machine that is engineered to ensure their safety. It's people outside of vehicles I'm most concerned about. Their only protection is their own wits.
Your poor judgment impacts me, so I get a say
Used is great, but it means you aren't participating in the market and manufacturers will not account for you. In other words, you literally cannot "vote with your wallet". This is coincidentally also a big reason why monopolies and duopolies are bad.
We already have this exact legislation in the UK.
However, once I took it for a test drive, I was relieved to find that almost every button I want to press while driving can be found on the steering wheel without looking. Only the air con controls are left out.
Push the wiper button (left stalk) once, adjust with left scrollwheel (either up/down if on a recent firmware or left/right if it’s older than a year or so).
Facelift has a dedicated button on the steering wheel I think and then scroll wheel as well…
When driving I may need to fine-tune a setting in a range, OR seek a specific touch- or switch-point amongst a field of identically sized levers or buttons.
My solution is to seek an anchor point with my hand while other fingers do the work. I like hanging my hand on physical knob controls, e.g. for volume, in a non-input direction and without motivating force to change the underlying value.
The problem with anchoring is that my arms jiggle like bouncy bridges, when driving over any kind of bump. This external force disrupts my solution. It can be somewhat solved by tighter grip on the knob or non-input region of the control.
Additional problems come from having touch-screens - they create an extra physical problem of reducing the anchor-safe areas on the dashboard.
And, I workaround touch-screen's problem of "need to anchor" vs "can't touch without committing to change" by tenting my hand on dead-zones of the screen, or around the bezel or surrounding non-input surface.
So touchscreens, for me, add complexity to using the vehicle as a tool to accomplish the deed. Like "secret handshakes" are to greeting.
No matter what you think about Apple’s “wall garden” for safety reasons Apple use to be very strict about the interface for CarPlay apps and responsible app developers were thoughtful about their CarPlay interface.
Now developers widgets will end up on CarPlay even when they didn’t intend it.
Why make people try to hit tiny targets while they’re driving? Every button could be a square inch.
But these things may be only a temporary problem. Self-driving vehicles may soon become the norm.
I’m not suggesting at all it’s ok to use your phone while driving, and is unlawful for a good reason. Yet CarPlay, a dumbed down phone bolted to your dash, is totally fine, despite being no more safe IMO
For example on nice days I want to vent the outside air into the car instead of ac or heat and it’s a good five+ buttons to click.
jleyank•2h ago
dazc•2h ago
amluto•1h ago
In my first car, I could operate the windows, climate control and sound system without taking my eyes off the road at all, although I had to glance briefly at the (fixed) display to see what radio station I was tuned to if it wasn’t obvious.
dazc•1h ago
Old-school radios were a lot more user-friendly with preset station buttons and a tactile volume control that actually felt like it was connected to something.
giantrobot•1h ago
Those controls are typically on some surface of the car your hand is braced on. They're also very simple physical controls with a good amount of tactile feedback. It's hard to fuck up a simple push button window control or AC dial. Even on a bumpy road you'd be hard pressed to have trouble with such controls.
doug_durham•1h ago
non_aligned•1h ago
With touchscreens, it's not just that you lose the tactile component, but all these interfaces are modal, with buttons that disappear or move around depending on the screen you're on.
Oh, you're on the radio screen? There's no way to adjust seat heating from here... or if there is one, it's in a different place than on the AC screen.
doug_durham•51m ago
Swenrekcah•1h ago
About 20 years ago, every teenager in the world who had a mobile phone was able to select a contact from their phonebook and type an entire message and send, in class with their phone in their pocket.
This is possible because of physical buttons and a deterministic user interface. The same applies to cars and other control interfaces.
doug_durham•53m ago