or we could try a less authoritarian approach and work to improve technologies like android auto and apple carplay that allow drivers to take advantage of the useful features of their phones without taking their eyes off the road.
Have you used any of those on a car which didn’t require using a touchscreen while driving? I have boggled at recent rentals after seeing how far car UIs have regressed over the last decade – so many things require you to move your hands to controls which cannot be used without looking, are extremely fiddly, or pull your attention away from the road.
Toss in the studies showing that handsfree usage doesn’t lower the distraction factor and I’m wondering whether the answer is banning anything short of a full HUD and that only for navigation.
I personally don't find it that bad to have to hit the voice command button on screen a couple of times per drive. for me it's once to start navigation and once to start my music, both of which I can do before leaving my parking space. it's a valid point though, touchscreen UIs are inherently less safe in a car, imo. bmw/mercedes/audi have much better controls where you can control all the systems through a wheel/paddle near the gearshifter but I'm not sure whether they are hooked up to android auto or carplay. in any case, all I'm really arguing is that it isn't that hard to devise a system that's as safe or safer than operating an old school radio. as I argue in a different post, having real-time traffic info is a huge win for safety. I would prefer to see that approach tried at scale before we jack up punishments or create a pervasive surveillance system.
I think the problem is that most manufacturers don’t want to spend time on good UI. I got a 2019 Ford earlier and it was like “hit the voice button, say something, wait, use the touchscreen to cancel the modal error dialog, try again, cancel the hilarious misinterpretation, try again, …”. I am unsurprised that people use the phone directly since the only thing which worked at all well was the sound output and Google maps display.
If it were up to me I’d ban touchscreens in the front row: voice or, better, buttons & knobs with distinct tactile feel, and the display has to be the same level as the instrument console and limited to navigation & basic info display. I think that’d avoid a lot of crashes but I imagine it’d get too much negative reaction until the toll of distracted driving is widely recognized, just as drunk driving took many years of awareness.
I don't disagree with anything you say here. tactile buttons with a quality screen isn't just safer, it's a better experience. I doubt people would miss the touchscreens for long.
That would be an interesting study — I would not be surprised that music & conversation have different impacts — but my main thought was just that it's important to measure the total distraction factor rather than just assuming it's sufficient not to require people to look at something. I'd want to carefully test whether a voice UI was actually better or if the distraction of dealing with marginal speech recognition, any concept of state/menus, etc. was still enough to qualify as a risk.
It's an option on many cars now, but Subaru has been somewhat late to the party - I know that Impreza got it in 2017, and Outback and some other cars in 2018. Looks like Forester only got it this year.
not sure without doing some research but android auto is a standard feature in my base 2017 gti.
android auto is honestly kind of frustrating from a UX perspective but I'd argue the voice controlled music app is safer than fiddling with a radio/cd player and integrated google maps lets me know ahead of time when I'm about to hit a slowdown on the highway so I can be ready to hit the brakes earlier.
