No Touching
Are touchscreens behind the rise in motor vehicle fatalities in recent years? You wouldn’t be alone if you assumed so. I’m with you, for instance.
Touchscreen devices have been in common use at least since the iPhone was launched, and touchscreens have been built into car dashboards as a way to control the car’s features at least since Tesla began enjoying Elon Musk’s hype. Although traditional carmakers waited until the equipment was up to industry standards, they have generally followed suit for two reasons: younger drivers presumably like them, and they cost less than a bunch of switches and dials.
Whether the devices in question are cell phones or dashboard touchscreens, they distract drivers, which is how researchers group driver activities like eating, drinking, talking, and grooming while behind the wheel. The data are more ambiguous than you might think. The United States, for instance, stands out among wealthy nations for experiencing increases in traffic fatalities in recent years. This is true whether measured as a rate of population (deaths per 100,000 people, say), miles driven (deaths per 10,000 miles driven), or car ownership (deaths per registered vehicles). The fatalities among traffic participants have risen in the U.S. across the board, too, including drivers, passengers, bicyclists, and pedestrians. Other suspects in the rising deaths include excessive speed and impaired driving.
The linked report is from the IIHS, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, and it begins with this statement:
It's not clear that banning hand-held phone use and texting reduces crashes. This is the case even though IIHS research has documented that bans on hand-held phone use reduce overall phone use. Crashes have increased in recent years, but overall cellphone use has not. Drivers are distracted by things other than cellphones, so prohibiting phone use will not eliminate distracted driving. Broader countermeasures that keep drivers from becoming distracted or that mitigate the consequences of distracted driving, such as crash avoidance technology, may be more effective than cellphone bans.
Nevertheless, it appears that drivers have not been the ones demanding touch screens as much as carmakers. The good news here is that carmakers may be starting to pay attention to what drivers want. Slate reported on the makings of a new trend just the other day.
Happily, there is one area where we are making at least marginal progress: A growing number of automakers are backpedaling away from the huge, complex touch screens that have infested dashboard design over the past 15 years. Buttons and knobs are coming back.
The touch screen pullback is the result of consumer backlash, not the enactment of overdue regulations or an awakening of corporate responsibility. Many drivers want buttons, not screens, and they’ve given carmakers an earful about it. Auto executives have long brushed aside safety concerns about their complex displays—and all signs suggest they would have happily kept doing so. But their customers are revolting, which has forced them to pay attention.
Although the article heralds Porsche as the harbinger of future trends, they also say that carmakers Nissan and Hyundai have not followed the touchscreen trend as slavishly as others, and the two are promoting the change.
I certainly hope this turns out to be true. I welcome the return of physical knobs and buttons to the dashboard. It would help if smartphone makers would train users on how to use hands-free voice commands, or lock out their touchscreens automatically when the vehicle is in motion. Nah, that last one is definitely asking too much.
I have a Mazda CX-5 and it splits the screen/knob controls pretty well. Temp and audio are dials (and steering wheel buttons for the audio). Temp controls generally are buttons on the console. The only thing that I'd have to use the touchscreen for is selecting radio stations (but I listen to podcasts) and using the map (I use my phone's GPS apps). The back-up camera, though, is a MUST these days. And the screen is perfectly sized and placed for that option.
Touchscreens might not be quite the distraction they are if they were better designed. The ones I've had experience with have been poorly laid out with too many and too small icons against a poor background, too many functions (just as in those dinosaurs known as VCRs: 247 and I need 6) and too many redundancies. For example, if the time / compass direction / outside temp (all useful displays) are displayed on the dash in front of the driver, why do they need to be in a fixed and permanent display on the touch screen in the center of the dash as well, taking up space and adding to the clutter? So a passenger can see them? Please.
On the plus side, a back-up camera / screen display is definitely an advantageous safety feature. When shifting into reverse, before my foot ever leaves the break I glance in all three mirrors and then at the screen to see if there's anyone or anything "short" directly behind me and too close to the back of the vehicle to be seen in the mirrors. Only then do I proceed to back up, especially and particularly in parking lots. When backing into parking spaces, as I often do when it's possible to, the guide markings on the display screen are a handy reference to see exactly how close your bumper is to another car or guardrail or wall directly behind, especially in a vehicle like my Durango, the hatch window of which does not afford a direct view of the front end of anything shorter than a pick up or large SUV. Other than that, I rely on my mirrors for backing into a space.
My 'perfect vehicle' as regards controls / displays and screens would be something akin to my '04 RAM pick up with all knob / slide / button controls for heating / vent / cooling / audio functions, an overhead compass / outside temp display in a small console for sunglass storage directly above and central to the windshield and out of the line of vision, and conventional gauges / speedo displays on the dashboard, with a couple of idiot lights thrown in for good measure. Integrate a screen / back-up camera, and voila. Happy camper.
I've learned to live with vehicle touchscreens out of necessity. And the back-up thing is great. But for everything else, I HATE THE DAMNED THINGS!!!
If I were in the market for a new vehicle, I'd probably be willing to pay a hefty option premium to get one *without* a freakin' screen.