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Is taking your hands off the steering wheel much better? Ideally, all controls would be available on the steering wheel without removing either hand. Or, as yo

Is taking your hands off the steering wheel much better? Ideally, all controls would be available on the steering wheel without removing either hand. Or, as you say, voice controls.

nannal 7y ago
When it comes to it, I don't think it's as bad. In a manual car one hand is often off the steering wheel and that's not detrimental.
dijit 7y ago
This is a great example of when "perfect is the enemy of good". Humans have pretty good spatial reasoning (proprioception); the notion that touch controls should replace tactile well-spaced controls is dependent on the fact that both senses (sight, spatial awareness) are uncontested. I would argue the point that sight is already in-use and must not be interfered with, if there's an alternative that does not use the same resources. I think of it like hardware acceleration and parrelelisation; the brain has a hardware accelerator for sight, but only one, and has a bunch of cores ready for other tasks, and those other tasks can happen in parallel.
- fastball 7y ago
  Or you could go for Tesla's strategy, which is try to get self-driving ASAP so you don't have the problem anymore.
axaxs 7y ago
Taking your hand off the steering wheel isn't so bad. It's loss of attention, even for 1 second, that's extremely dangerous. Touch screens make you look away from the road. Knobs and buttons do not. However, jamming them all into the steering wheel may then cause the same problem, as if there's too many things in the same area you'd have to look down to find what you're looking for.
donaltroddyn 7y ago
I'm not at all convinced that voice recognition are better or safer than well designed physical controls.
- winkeltripel 7y ago
  I'm certain that it'll be worse. Consider spending 15 seconds to change a single setting.
throwaway55554 7y ago
Taking one hand off the wheel is nowhere near as bad as taking your eyes off the road. With physical knobs, I can use muscle memory to reach out and adjust them without taking my eyes off the road.
quicklime 7y ago
Having it on the dash rather than the steering wheel also allows the passenger to operate the controls, which is probably the safest way to do it.
usrusr 7y ago
Steering is a "good enough" problem outside of extreme driving conditions whereas in driver attention every bit of eyes-on-the-road counts.
nickpinkston 7y ago
That's actually the approach Ferrari uses: https://images.app.goo.gl/KdEV4qWFEHouDEq28 https://images.app.goo.gl/KdEV4qWFEHouDEq28
- fanatic2pope 7y ago
  No radio! As god herself intended.
  - nickpinkston 7y ago
    Still a phone though - I guess you might get an important call on the road :D
Jagat 7y ago
>> Is taking your hands off the steering wheel much better? Yes. Most drivers are able to drive using one hand for a short period of time. Not so with eyes off the road. In fact, it's a requirement in most countries where stick shift is the norm.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
laumars 7y ago
Some cars already do. My car has buttons on the steering wheel which allow you to navigate menus, control the radio, etc. As well as paddles to control over functions. The problem is if you are not on a straight road those controls become virtually impossible to use safely. Whereas if I quickly need to change the volume or even mute the radio I can do so one handed without even glancing at the volume dial on the radio and still steer the car safely.
jimbob45 7y ago
Hand, not hands. Also my steering wheel has both. I can do everything by feeling without my eyes leaving the road.
paganel 7y ago
Yes, taking one hand off the steering wheel is much better than taking your eyes off the road. Let's be honest here, we're not driving F1 cars so we don't actually physically need to be with both hands on the wheel 100% of the time, but it can take only second of us not looking at the road and we could be hitting someone/something and be dead (or we could kill that someone that we've just hit). I really, really love to drive, I think I'm one of the few Europeans who chose to drive from Eastern Europe till the Atlantic Coast and back for his vacation just because I like driving (and wanted to see how Europe actually looks like outside of the big cities), and as such I can tell you that lack of attention (i.e. not seeing where you go and not seeing how the people around you are going) is the number one factor of accidents. I think there's nothing else that comes close to it.
BeetleB 7y ago
Having actually used voice controls in a car, it is worse than taking one hand off the steering wheel. It is also worse than a touch screen interface. It really is the worst of all options. Because they suck at recognition. I've noticed the mental effort I spend in trying to formulate a voice command that the car (or even phone) will understand is significant - and that almost none of my brain is being used for driving. The likelihood of it not recognizing what I said is not low. With tactile buttons, it's almost automatic. I don't spend any time thinking. I know where the buttons are, and my finger is good at finding it. On the few occasions where I'm not sure where my finger landed, I can still slowly move my finger to an edge and start counting. I can do this over several seconds. Often while doing this I have to attend to an event on the road, and it's trivial to do so: I pause my finger search, attend to the event on the road, and then resume. So even if it takes 10-30s to find my button (very rare), it can be done with almost no loss of attention on the road. The same goes if I need to pause to listen/respond to what someone else in the car is saying. Contrast that with voice recognition: If I have to pause to attend to anything on the road, the recognition system assumes I'm done talking. This adds more mental stress (maybe it will execute the wrong command? In any case I'll have to start over). Now I'll go further and make an even stronger claim: Even if voice recognition becomes almost perfect (better than humans), it will still be a greater cognitive load to use voice recognition. For me, changing stations on the radio or adjusting the volume or adjusting the climate control is pretty automatic. The cognitive load of finding the preset station is virtually none. Whereas just formulating the command verbally - even to another human where I wouldn't worry about voice recognition - takes more effort. Perhaps verbal skills are tied to the vision in the brain and tactile senses are not? I wonder if any studies have been done on this.
mywittyname 7y ago
I do not like button on steering wheels. I drive at 10-and-2 so unless I know where the damn button I'm looking for is, I have to move my hands to look under them on the steering wheel. I have a Ford where all the buttons are mostly the same. If you forced me to have them, I'd prefer something like a d-pad on each side because they are easy to locate without looking and intuitive to select. Critical controls should be stalks, IMHO. I can't use cruise control in the car I've owned for six years without looking at the steering wheel, but I test drove a Subaru, which I haven't owned for like 9 years, and immediately remembered how to operate the cruise stalk.
Dahoon 7y ago
Voice controls are worse than texting: "Undistracted drivers typically showed a one-second reaction time. Those who used the voice-controlled Apple CarPlay saw a 36% increase in their reaction time, which rose to 57% when they used the touch interface." https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/03/20/new-study-shows-using-apple-carplay-impairs-drivers-reaction-times-more-than-alcohol https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/03/20/new-study-shows-u...

Is taking your hands off the steering wheel much better? Ideally, all controls would be available on the steering wheel without removing either hand. Or, as you say, voice controls.

nannal 7y ago

When it comes to it, I don't think it's as bad. In a manual car one hand is often off the steering wheel and that's not detrimental.

dijit 7y ago

This is a great example of when "perfect is the enemy of good". Humans have pretty good spatial reasoning (proprioception); the notion that touch controls should replace tactile well-spaced controls is dependent on the fact that both senses (sight, spatial awareness) are uncontested. I would argue the point that sight is already in-use and must not be interfered with, if there's an alternative that does not use the same resources. I think of it like hardware acceleration and parrelelisation; the brain has a hardware accelerator for sight, but only one, and has a bunch of cores ready for other tasks, and those other tasks can happen in parallel.

fastball 7y ago
Or you could go for Tesla's strategy, which is try to get self-driving ASAP so you don't have the problem anymore.

axaxs 7y ago

Taking your hand off the steering wheel isn't so bad. It's loss of attention, even for 1 second, that's extremely dangerous. Touch screens make you look away from the road. Knobs and buttons do not. However, jamming them all into the steering wheel may then cause the same problem, as if there's too many things in the same area you'd have to look down to find what you're looking for.

donaltroddyn 7y ago

I'm not at all convinced that voice recognition are better or safer than well designed physical controls.

winkeltripel 7y ago
I'm certain that it'll be worse. Consider spending 15 seconds to change a single setting.

throwaway55554 7y ago

Taking one hand off the wheel is nowhere near as bad as taking your eyes off the road. With physical knobs, I can use muscle memory to reach out and adjust them without taking my eyes off the road.

quicklime 7y ago

Having it on the dash rather than the steering wheel also allows the passenger to operate the controls, which is probably the safest way to do it.

usrusr 7y ago

Steering is a "good enough" problem outside of extreme driving conditions whereas in driver attention every bit of eyes-on-the-road counts.

nickpinkston 7y ago

That's actually the approach Ferrari uses: https://images.app.goo.gl/KdEV4qWFEHouDEq28 https://images.app.goo.gl/KdEV4qWFEHouDEq28

fanatic2pope 7y ago
No radio! As god herself intended.
- nickpinkston 7y ago
  Still a phone though - I guess you might get an important call on the road :D

Jagat 7y ago

>> Is taking your hands off the steering wheel much better? Yes. Most drivers are able to drive using one hand for a short period of time. Not so with eyes off the road. In fact, it's a requirement in most countries where stick shift is the norm.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

laumars 7y ago

Some cars already do. My car has buttons on the steering wheel which allow you to navigate menus, control the radio, etc. As well as paddles to control over functions. The problem is if you are not on a straight road those controls become virtually impossible to use safely. Whereas if I quickly need to change the volume or even mute the radio I can do so one handed without even glancing at the volume dial on the radio and still steer the car safely.

jimbob45 7y ago

Hand, not hands. Also my steering wheel has both. I can do everything by feeling without my eyes leaving the road.

paganel 7y ago

Yes, taking one hand off the steering wheel is much better than taking your eyes off the road. Let's be honest here, we're not driving F1 cars so we don't actually physically need to be with both hands on the wheel 100% of the time, but it can take only second of us not looking at the road and we could be hitting someone/something and be dead (or we could kill that someone that we've just hit). I really, really love to drive, I think I'm one of the few Europeans who chose to drive from Eastern Europe till the Atlantic Coast and back for his vacation just because I like driving (and wanted to see how Europe actually looks like outside of the big cities), and as such I can tell you that lack of attention (i.e. not seeing where you go and not seeing how the people around you are going) is the number one factor of accidents. I think there's nothing else that comes close to it.

BeetleB 7y ago

Having actually used voice controls in a car, it is worse than taking one hand off the steering wheel. It is also worse than a touch screen interface. It really is the worst of all options. Because they suck at recognition. I've noticed the mental effort I spend in trying to formulate a voice command that the car (or even phone) will understand is significant - and that almost none of my brain is being used for driving. The likelihood of it not recognizing what I said is not low. With tactile buttons, it's almost automatic. I don't spend any time thinking. I know where the buttons are, and my finger is good at finding it. On the few occasions where I'm not sure where my finger landed, I can still slowly move my finger to an edge and start counting. I can do this over several seconds. Often while doing this I have to attend to an event on the road, and it's trivial to do so: I pause my finger search, attend to the event on the road, and then resume. So even if it takes 10-30s to find my button (very rare), it can be done with almost no loss of attention on the road. The same goes if I need to pause to listen/respond to what someone else in the car is saying. Contrast that with voice recognition: If I have to pause to attend to anything on the road, the recognition system assumes I'm done talking. This adds more mental stress (maybe it will execute the wrong command? In any case I'll have to start over). Now I'll go further and make an even stronger claim: Even if voice recognition becomes almost perfect (better than humans), it will still be a greater cognitive load to use voice recognition. For me, changing stations on the radio or adjusting the volume or adjusting the climate control is pretty automatic. The cognitive load of finding the preset station is virtually none. Whereas just formulating the command verbally - even to another human where I wouldn't worry about voice recognition - takes more effort. Perhaps verbal skills are tied to the vision in the brain and tactile senses are not? I wonder if any studies have been done on this.

mywittyname 7y ago

I do not like button on steering wheels. I drive at 10-and-2 so unless I know where the damn button I'm looking for is, I have to move my hands to look under them on the steering wheel. I have a Ford where all the buttons are mostly the same. If you forced me to have them, I'd prefer something like a d-pad on each side because they are easy to locate without looking and intuitive to select. Critical controls should be stalks, IMHO. I can't use cruise control in the car I've owned for six years without looking at the steering wheel, but I test drove a Subaru, which I haven't owned for like 9 years, and immediately remembered how to operate the cruise stalk.

Dahoon 7y ago

Voice controls are worse than texting: "Undistracted drivers typically showed a one-second reaction time. Those who used the voice-controlled Apple CarPlay saw a 36% increase in their reaction time, which rose to 57% when they used the touch interface." https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/03/20/new-study-shows-using-apple-carplay-impairs-drivers-reaction-times-more-than-alcohol https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/03/20/new-study-shows-u...