It's the best news I've read in a long time, if slightly premature. Not all carmakers are going back to safer eyes-off controls, and none are doing very much to bring them back.
There are strong economic incentives for vehicle manufacturers to install do-it-all touchscreens, with elaborate menus that require looking at the screen while the car is in motion.
They'll continue to do so, despite obvious safety hazards. Motorcycle makers have the same incentives. But it's not motorcycle instrument panels that mostly menace motorcyclists.
"Distracted" automobile drivers are the huge threat to motorcyclists. Riders already fear they're nearly invisible, even to attentive drivers. Screens promote additional distraction.
Experienced drivers and riders know that the best kind of controls are those you can operate without having to look at them. Knobs, switches, levers and buttons placed where muscles can remember their location and function are life savers.
Quoted in the Wired article is VW design chief Andreas Mindt:
"It's not a phone, it's a car."
That simple philosophy, put into effect across the industry, could save many lives.
Wired printed a chart from IAM Roadsmart showing the change in reaction time caused by various distractions. An undistracted driver has a reaction time of one second. A drunk driver has a reaction time 12 percent greater.
That's bad.
What's worse? A driver using Apple CarPlay on the touch screen has a reaction time 57 percent greater.
If automakers seriously do address the problem of distracting screens, I suspect the first thing they will do is go to voice commands. That's better, but not much.
The Wired chart shows that using CarPlay voice commands only reduces added reaction time to 36 percent greater than that of an undistracted driver.
My wife patiently endures my resistance to using, or even looking at, the touch screen on the dashboard of our family car.
As co-pilot, she attends to the various functions, and even announces what the navigation map shows.
"Not this light, but at the next one, turn left," she'll say.
What am I looking at instead? The road ahead, as seen through the windshield.
I'm not a hero; just an old guy who grew up driving old cars and, for almost a decade, commuting on an old Royal Enfield motorcycle.
On a motorcycle, you had better not be looking at the instrument panel (such as there is, on a motorcycle) when moving.
The only downside to ignoring a motorcycle dash is that the turn signals on a motorcycle are not self-cancelling, so, yes, an inattentive motorcyclist can merrily ride for miles indicating a turn he never takes.
That's important. I try to compensate by using hand signals, which do, in effect, self cancel.
In the car, I let my wife wrestle with CarPlay.
No comments:
Post a Comment