The existence of a touchscreen isn’t a problem, just having common controls moved to it. The touchscreen is useful for interacting with active phone apps, e.g. maps. A total motion lockout might be excessive.
In my mind, the issue is that cars are incentivizing drivers to use high attention controls like touchscreens while driving. Actions that need to happen while driving, whether they’re directly vehicle operation, or something like air conditioning or media volume, should be simple low-attention controls, ideally with tactile feedback. Keep it simple for your brain, keep focus on the road.
I have volume buttons, skip, jump backwards, and a numpad on my dash that interact with phone apps via Bluetooth. Maybe there’s a physical (or voice) control that can be added to the dash or wheel to interact with map/navigation apps. Using the touchscreen is dangerous, and a car shouldn’t provide a reason to do so. I’d rather solve the problem another way.
But if a touchscreen is required to update the clock, or do Bluetooth pairing, that’s fine. There’s no reason to need to do those while driving.
The existence of a touchscreen isn’t a problem, just having common controls moved to it. The touchscreen is useful for interacting with active phone apps, e.g. maps. A total motion lockout might be excessive.
In my mind, the issue is that cars are incentivizing drivers to use high attention controls like touchscreens while driving. Actions that need to happen while driving, whether they’re directly vehicle operation, or something like air conditioning or media volume, should be simple low-attention controls, ideally with tactile feedback. Keep it simple for your brain, keep focus on the road.
I have volume buttons, skip, jump backwards, and a numpad on my dash that interact with phone apps via Bluetooth. Maybe there’s a physical (or voice) control that can be added to the dash or wheel to interact with map/navigation apps. Using the touchscreen is dangerous, and a car shouldn’t provide a reason to do so. I’d rather solve the problem another way.
But if a touchscreen is required to update the clock, or do Bluetooth pairing, that’s fine. There’s no reason to need to do those while driving.