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Which brings up a fun question; At which point does pressing buttons on a screen to play a video game while driving cause just as much distraction as pressing b

Which brings up a fun question; At which point does pressing buttons on a screen to play a video game while driving cause just as much distraction as pressing buttons on a screen to manage your windshield wipers / drive mode / HVAC / windows? There used to be a lot of crashes attributed to "playing with the radio" in the 90's / 00's. Maybe all those buttons on the wheel and a display centered in the drivers cone of vision were actually huge advancements in safety...

warning26 5y ago
Honestly, I wish the powers-that-be would crack down harder on touchscreens in vehicles. There is no case where manipulating a touchscreen while driving is safe, for one simple reason: you have to look at the screen to use it because there's no tactile feedback. They are truly, as that one book title went, unsafe at any speed.
- jeroenhd 5y ago
  There have been some experiments with effective tactile feedback provided by touch screens, but they're complicated to produce and expensive. Most of the research seems to be aimed at providing touch screens to the visually impaired. It's possible to get some kind of tactile response mimicking the edges of buttons well enough. I'd say a good implementation of this technology would be safe IF the position and availability of the controls would be static. I'm not sure what you'd get out of a touch screen with those constraints (less parts?), especially with the added cost and research, but that's the only way I can see a touch screen in a car that should ever be legal. A Tesla driver in Germany already got fined for using the touch screen of his car while driving. It's strange how this obvious flaw of a car design has ever been allowed onto the roads.
  - warning26 5y ago
    > ...safe IF the position and availability of the controls would be static Agreed -- this was also why the Apple Touchbar failed, IMO. Typically keyboard use relies on a lot of muscle memory, and so the touchbar's "you get a different set of controls with different shapes and sizes that do different things depending on which app you're using" design ethos didn't really fit with how people actually use keyboards.
    - toast0 5y ago
      Soft buttons aren't terrible. F-keys are an example where the same button could mean different things in different contexts, but they're tactile. Or if you had a Ti-85 (or 86), it had soft f1-5 and was a lot more flexible than the Ti-82 which had hard function keys. You could get muscle memory of entering menus and using the f keys that would be presented. Of course, hopefully a car doesn't have quite so deep of a menu tree. If buttons are too expensive and you want to reduce the count, if I press radio and then F1, that could be radio preset 1, and if I press fan and then F1, that turns the fan speed to 1 of 6 (which could be off, I don't really care), that would be fine, and then you don't need quite so many buttons. Otoh, if I'm paying $20k or more for a car, you can afford some buttons.
  - pxc 5y ago
    > It's strange how this obvious flaw of a car design has ever been allowed onto the roads. It's strange that anyone thinks it's even desirable. Touchscreens aren't even pleasant to use in this context.
    - DavidPeiffer 5y ago
      I hate touchscreens in cars, but I'll give Tesla the fact that their touchscreen is a modern screen that's not a complete piece of crap to interact with. When phones can run at 30 fps and have no noticeable lag, it's infuriating to switch to a car which stutters on some ugly, unnecessary graphics and takes 0.25 seconds to respond to a touch input. Not to mention the whole "you're supposed to be driving a car" aspect.
      - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
        You phone doesn't have to survive 125C for ten years of continual vibration.
        DavidPeiffer 5y ago
        It doesn't. If you can't provide an adequate user experience free of large input delays, you should have never installed a touchscreen in the first place. Infotainment systems have gotten less bad, but I haven't seen notable advancement in reducing time spent with eyes off of the road the way a physical button or knob does.
        adamcstephens 5y ago
        They install touchscreens because they think people want them. The cars sell, because the only choice is touchscreens, and their decisions are validated. Rinse and repeat.
ehnto 5y ago
If your eyes aren't on the road, you aren't driving. I have zero sympathy for any of the edge cases people tend to bring up except checking your speed. Just drive the car. Take your tech-addled brains out of dopamine acquisition mode for the duration of the drive, then have a big 'ol binge at the end if you must. It's such trivial things that people risk their lives for too. A sort of trashy naivety. Like smoking at the gas pump.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  >If your eyes aren't on the road, you aren't driving. >I have zero sympathy for any of the edge cases people tend to bring up except checking your speed. You're saying the speedometer is the only instrument that needs to be scanned regularly? I would've said that the speedometer really isn't needed - if you go with traffic and don't hang out in the passing lane, you're never going to get in trouble. It's a lot more important to me to know if I've lost oil pressure or am overheating. And if the HVAC controls are unnecessary to mess with while driving, they are still not an "edge case". Nor is the radio.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
    Unfortunately in AU too many people speed. Going with the flow would result in a few fines I’d rather not have.
    - perl4ever 5y ago
      If you drive at the 49th percentile of speed, you would expect financially burdensome fines on a regular basis? This may be naive, but I've assumed that it is practically impossible to enforce laws that a majority of the population habitually breaks.
      - ehnto 5y ago
        Australia is a unique situation, the fines are enormous, and policing speed is a top priority for law enforcement here. Lots of automated cameras and hidden mobile cameras. My last speeding fine for < 10km over was $786. You only get to do that four times before losing your license temporarily, so you can't just pay the fines and be on your way either. Their goal is zero road fatalities.
SomeHacker44 5y ago
I hate the Tesla Model 3 touchscreen. No muscle memory. No haptic feedback. Using it almost constantly causes attention problems. If it weren't for the ability of the car to alert lane departures, cars braking ahead of you, etc., I likely would have had many accidents already, just using the touch screen for things should be physical controls. Best bet is to engage autopilot then do whatever you gotta do.
- pintxo 5y ago
  Would be interesting to know if Tesla counts lane departure prevention caused by driver-distracted-by-touchscreen across the fleet to showcase the safety of its car, while in reality it's the lack of safety introduced by the touchscreen which caused the issue in the first place? btw: I had the exact same experience with another brand (rental car) where the touchscreen was so ill placed, that basically any interaction with it messed with the steering.

warning26 5y ago

Honestly, I wish the powers-that-be would crack down harder on touchscreens in vehicles. There is no case where manipulating a touchscreen while driving is safe, for one simple reason: you have to look at the screen to use it because there's no tactile feedback. They are truly, as that one book title went, unsafe at any speed.

jeroenhd 5y ago
There have been some experiments with effective tactile feedback provided by touch screens, but they're complicated to produce and expensive. Most of the research seems to be aimed at providing touch screens to the visually impaired. It's possible to get some kind of tactile response mimicking the edges of buttons well enough. I'd say a good implementation of this technology would be safe IF the position and availability of the controls would be static. I'm not sure what you'd get out of a touch screen with those constraints (less parts?), especially with the added cost and research, but that's the only way I can see a touch screen in a car that should ever be legal. A Tesla driver in Germany already got fined for using the touch screen of his car while driving. It's strange how this obvious flaw of a car design has ever been allowed onto the roads.
- warning26 5y ago
  > ...safe IF the position and availability of the controls would be static Agreed -- this was also why the Apple Touchbar failed, IMO. Typically keyboard use relies on a lot of muscle memory, and so the touchbar's "you get a different set of controls with different shapes and sizes that do different things depending on which app you're using" design ethos didn't really fit with how people actually use keyboards.
  - toast0 5y ago
    Soft buttons aren't terrible. F-keys are an example where the same button could mean different things in different contexts, but they're tactile. Or if you had a Ti-85 (or 86), it had soft f1-5 and was a lot more flexible than the Ti-82 which had hard function keys. You could get muscle memory of entering menus and using the f keys that would be presented. Of course, hopefully a car doesn't have quite so deep of a menu tree. If buttons are too expensive and you want to reduce the count, if I press radio and then F1, that could be radio preset 1, and if I press fan and then F1, that turns the fan speed to 1 of 6 (which could be off, I don't really care), that would be fine, and then you don't need quite so many buttons. Otoh, if I'm paying $20k or more for a car, you can afford some buttons.
- pxc 5y ago
  > It's strange how this obvious flaw of a car design has ever been allowed onto the roads. It's strange that anyone thinks it's even desirable. Touchscreens aren't even pleasant to use in this context.
  - DavidPeiffer 5y ago
    I hate touchscreens in cars, but I'll give Tesla the fact that their touchscreen is a modern screen that's not a complete piece of crap to interact with. When phones can run at 30 fps and have no noticeable lag, it's infuriating to switch to a car which stutters on some ugly, unnecessary graphics and takes 0.25 seconds to respond to a touch input. Not to mention the whole "you're supposed to be driving a car" aspect.
    - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
      You phone doesn't have to survive 125C for ten years of continual vibration.
      - DavidPeiffer 5y ago
        It doesn't. If you can't provide an adequate user experience free of large input delays, you should have never installed a touchscreen in the first place. Infotainment systems have gotten less bad, but I haven't seen notable advancement in reducing time spent with eyes off of the road the way a physical button or knob does.
        adamcstephens 5y ago
        They install touchscreens because they think people want them. The cars sell, because the only choice is touchscreens, and their decisions are validated. Rinse and repeat.

ehnto 5y ago

If your eyes aren't on the road, you aren't driving. I have zero sympathy for any of the edge cases people tend to bring up except checking your speed. Just drive the car. Take your tech-addled brains out of dopamine acquisition mode for the duration of the drive, then have a big 'ol binge at the end if you must. It's such trivial things that people risk their lives for too. A sort of trashy naivety. Like smoking at the gas pump.

perl4ever 5y ago
>If your eyes aren't on the road, you aren't driving. >I have zero sympathy for any of the edge cases people tend to bring up except checking your speed. You're saying the speedometer is the only instrument that needs to be scanned regularly? I would've said that the speedometer really isn't needed - if you go with traffic and don't hang out in the passing lane, you're never going to get in trouble. It's a lot more important to me to know if I've lost oil pressure or am overheating. And if the HVAC controls are unnecessary to mess with while driving, they are still not an "edge case". Nor is the radio.
- 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
  Unfortunately in AU too many people speed. Going with the flow would result in a few fines I’d rather not have.
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    If you drive at the 49th percentile of speed, you would expect financially burdensome fines on a regular basis? This may be naive, but I've assumed that it is practically impossible to enforce laws that a majority of the population habitually breaks.
    - ehnto 5y ago
      Australia is a unique situation, the fines are enormous, and policing speed is a top priority for law enforcement here. Lots of automated cameras and hidden mobile cameras. My last speeding fine for < 10km over was $786. You only get to do that four times before losing your license temporarily, so you can't just pay the fines and be on your way either. Their goal is zero road fatalities.

SomeHacker44 5y ago

I hate the Tesla Model 3 touchscreen. No muscle memory. No haptic feedback. Using it almost constantly causes attention problems. If it weren't for the ability of the car to alert lane departures, cars braking ahead of you, etc., I likely would have had many accidents already, just using the touch screen for things should be physical controls. Best bet is to engage autopilot then do whatever you gotta do.

pintxo 5y ago
Would be interesting to know if Tesla counts lane departure prevention caused by driver-distracted-by-touchscreen across the fleet to showcase the safety of its car, while in reality it's the lack of safety introduced by the touchscreen which caused the issue in the first place? btw: I had the exact same experience with another brand (rental car) where the touchscreen was so ill placed, that basically any interaction with it messed with the steering.