I hope they prove to be extremely popular, and car makers realize what a stupid idea touchscreens in cars were in the first place, and give up the idea completely.
...and then there will be unicorns and flutterbugs and cotton candy, and everyone will be happy and nothing bad will ever happen again.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that feel strongly anti-screen in the car. I feel so strongly about it that I drive an old car. I want an electric car eventually, and I hope that the automakers start building all cars, including electrics, with fully tactile control surfaces (didn't Honda say they'd eliminate screens in their cars? What happened with that?). It looks less Star-Trek sexy, but it also works 50x better.
You know who gets this? Airplane pilots. They use screens but with a great deal of care.
The difference is that cars are mass-produced while airplanes are effectively bespoke.* And everything-on-the-touchscreen is cheaper to manufacture than physical knobs, so saving 25 cents per car matters. Airplanes are much more expensive than cars because they're all basically made by hand, so they can afford to spend more money on a better human interface.
I'm not suggesting touchscreens in cars are "a good thing", but I get the economics.
*Boeing makes around 700 aircraft per year. GM makes that many cars every hour.
Oh I am aware that screens are generally a lot cheaper. Plus you can update them over the air! (OTA updates being another anti-feature I do not want on any vehicle that I own or operate).
Not to mention the fact that literally every pilot has an iPad mounted in the cockpit for foreflight. Pilots fucking love touchscreens, avionics just change very slowly.
It's now mandated by law that new cars have back-up screens. That's a helpful safety feature, but I fear it's also teaching new drivers that one cannot back up a vehicle without a screen. If such drivers find themselves pulling a trailer, driving a rental truck that has no screen, or driving an ordinary car with a bike rack on the back that obscures the camera's view, they'll suddenly find themselves unable to reverse the vehicle. Don't get dependent on the screens; learn to use the mirrors and swivel your head.
No amount of swivelling your head allows you to see the blind spot right behind you - not using a screen is really dangerous which is why they made them mandatory.
> No amount of swivelling your head allows you to see the blind spot right behind you - not using a screen is really dangerous which is why they made them mandatory.
I've worked in the auto Industry for a large part of my life in some form, and even when cameras are installed their are a lot of owners (mainly older) who don't use them.
I can use them or not since I've spent enough time staging cars, so while it's a useful tool to have them it's specious reasoning to think they are an absolute answer to all accidents that happen when you back up. It's just as odd as thinking as somehow cars with auto-dimming headlamps when the turn signals are on are what was necessary for others to see you want to turn--I have no problem seeing this even on motorcycles as I ride and tend to be rather vigilant to these lights just to not get hit. It's akin to thinking that all cars must have a self-parking feature.
Honestly, I place more blame on mobile phones for needless accidents than anything else on the road these days, second only to tired or careless drivers. Both of which I have been guilty of at some point, too.
And yet making them mandatory does not mean they will suddenly appear everywhere, so it's still a good idea to have a backup plan (npi).
It sounds to me like you think I'm against backup cameras, but I like them. My concern is that they are not always going to be present and working, so it's still a good idea to learn to safely reverse a vehicle without a camera. Speaking as someone who frequently drives fire trucks, ambulances, and large RVs, it's simply incorrect that it's somehow impossible to safely reverse a vehicle without a camera. Cameras are helpful tools but training and care should still be a driver's #1 safety priority.
Then use your eyes and neck joint to check your blind spots? You'd fail a UK driving test if you relied entirely on your mirror (or camera, for that matter) when reversing.
Unless you have a three-metre articulated neck you are not going to be able to get your head out the car and round the back to see right behind your own car while driving it - I can't believe people aren't aware they have blind spots there? That's how small children get run over.
Why do you think they made backup cameras mandatory? Why do you think they believe they save lives?
Who made them mandatory? When and where? You have other blind spots, too, and manufacturers know that relying on a camera makes drivers neglect their other blind spots - Skoda cars even pop up a toast notification saying "Look around, is it safe to move?" to try and discourage lazy drivers thinking the computer is a replacement for a brain.
But all this feels like a moot point, anyway. I understood the main argument to be advocating the use of physical controls, not the removal of safety sensors and cameras.
I'll be another voice so that it's not just Chris :)
Backover accidents are real. Cameras help a lot. Arguments about "but they are not in all cars" forget that seatbelts, airbags, and ABS were also once in that category.
If you are worried about drivers not being hardcore enough and relying too much on cameras: do you know how to use a choke? What about a crank start? An unsynchronized gearbox?
Yup. I have never driven a car where you have to double-clutch but I know they exist. Most people probably don't even know this and yet are still good drivers. They get out of driving what they want to get out of it. Not everyone has to drive a vintage car to be called a driver.
I hope you spend a very, very, long time wearing a next brace as the result of reversing into traffic. It would be fitting. Cameras have blind spots too. They're just different ones.
It's funny, but I wasn't reading authors very closely in this sub-thread, and my general impression was a lot of mirror hate and fear. But then I noticed that it's ALL coming from you, Chris.
TBH I have never heard anyone, not once, talk about mirrors being dangerous or about this even being an issue. Yet to hear you say it our children's blood is running in the street.
Who are you, and why are you pushing this so hard?
Always an excellent (if mis-spelled) rejoinder, if the burden of proof is on you, and you are failing to meet it.
>They literally introduced laws
You've claimed this 5 or 6 times in this sub-thread, and yet I've not seen a single reference or link. Here, you link to "fatherly.com", which I will not visit. Link to something reputable, ideally the law itself, or major news coverage of the law.
>210 fatalities and 15,000 injuries
I know a case is weak when they start quoting absolute numbers at me on national issues. The order-of-magnitude of people in the US is 10^8. 200 dead is close to the noise floor on unlikely death. Literally 1-in-a-million. It's like the number of people that die from snake bites and shark attacks and lightning strikes.
>No mirror is showing you where you need to see to avoid these fatal accidents.
Here's where you get to the actual danger of what you are saying. Because screens do not come without considerable cost, not just in terms of hardware, but in terms of distraction. Do you think the number of fatalities caused directly or indirectly by screen-use-while-driving will exceed 200? (I would bet it's at 20k right now).
BTW I will carve out an exception - it's probably a good idea to have a dedicated backup screen, as with a 3rd party dashcam you can install yourself. However this is a very different beast than the center console infotainment center that, for that brief moment it becomes vital safety equipment, becomes a massive, constant, deadly liability to the safety of everyone within eyeshot.
This is a bizarre reason to refuse to understand something - you can find these laws yourself in seconds, either the original legislation, or references to it in the media, by Googling for them.
Well take it up with the US and EU governments! I didn't write the laws - I'm just telling you what it is and why they introduced it.
You have to follow the law - and have a backup camera and screen in a new car - for other people's safety whether you like it or not! Just like you have to wear your seatbelt.
Not sure what your angle here is, but you clearly aren't an unbiased commenter. You have gone on and on about how many lives this law has saved, and how dangerous it is to drive without a screen and so on. So yes, I do expect you to make a better case rather than walk around acting as if yours is the foregone conclusion, obvious and right (of course, because it's for the children!)
You still have not responded to my central claim that these screens claim far, far more lives than they save.
My position is supported by the professionals in the US, Canada, and EU who spend their entire working lives studying safety issues and trade-offs and making recommendations for legislation.
> a statistically significant 28 percent reduction in crashes
You:
> You still have not responded to my central claim that these screens claim far, far more lives than they save.
Them:
> no evidence to support the hypothesis that driver’s backing behavior (i.e. speed and acceleration) was influenced by the presence of absence of an RV system
People said the kind of things that you're saying about seatbelts when they came out - they thought they'd get trapped and didn't want to wear them. At some point you have to listen to the studies not just gut instinct.
Let's assume that these screens eliminate 100% of all deaths and accidental injury from backing up.
My point is that does not outweigh the number of deaths that are caused when the screen distracts the driver and causes a crash. This happens frequently, at higher speeds, and with worse consequences. Worse, I bet these crashes are grossly under-reported because no-one is going to admit being distracted by a screen, and so accepting liability.
As for gut instinct, mine has nothing to do with it. I have been in enough close calls with other distracted drivers, and I have seen the PSAs about not driving distracted, to know that it's a 10 kdeath/yr issue, not a 100 death/yr issue.
I'm going to disengage because there's something about this whole interaction that doesn't sit right with me.
I actually think it's a good idea to leave the screen in for rear/parking, and disable it while driving at higher speed.
And I feel the same for the baseband chip (phone and data), speaker, noise-notification in phones. Yes I'm punishing passengers, waze, etc, but the #1 (observed) danger these days to me, cyclist and pedestrian, is the driver's phone. It's such a problem, I feel we're not being serious about it.
The technical issue is that the center rear view mirror cannot see below the bottom of the rear windshield. And so small children, perhaps on bikes etc, aren't visible in the mirrors.
It it possible to mitigate this by visually checking that blindspot before you get in the car, and keeping aware to make sure nothing sneaks into it while you're getting in? Sure, just like it is also possible to backup with no mirrors whatsoever by getting out of the vehicle and surveying your surroundings.
But on the whole, enough people don't do this that backup accidents are indeed an issue.
What my neck really wants is an auxiliary backup camera that you can stick on a towed trailer.
(Also I'll just chime in here - "screw touchscreens". The damn things should be illegal for any function the driver might need to used while driving. Software defined display screens are fine, but should be fully navigable through straightforwardly-predictable states using directional buttons on the steering wheel)
Yet still 210 fatalities and 15,000 injuries are caused every year by backover crashes. We can fix most of those with backup cameras and screens. But people here want to remove those screens.
Leaving aside the extremists, most people here seem to want to remove mostly touchscreens that replaced electro-mechanical under-the-wheel commands. I actually agree with those 'takes'. Completely removing any screen seems some kind of butlerian djihad. Leave the screen, doesn't have to be huge, or to be seen by anyone else than the driver, put it somewhere useful for safety. And make it not flashy, not attention grabbing when driving.
Not if you move properly. The idea is to know where a car’s blind spots are and to move your head to look around.
It’s tragic how kids get run over, but it’s a tiny amount out of a country of 300 million.
When I had toddlers, I would make sure I could see them in front of the car before I would back out. If I didn’t know where they were, I didn’t back up.
Not a perfect system, of course. But the idea that rear cameras are a necessity is silly.
I often mow my yard nowhere near a child however my mower is unable to mow in reverse due to some regulations. I'm dissatisfied I'm held to a safety standard which does not apply to my use. Should I be wearing a seatbelt too, because some people fall off? Some burden should fall on parental supervision, rather than x million reverse cameras etc that people don't require.
I don't really remember it being an endemic issue of people getting run over by backing up cars that had that small blindspot. Could have been an issue of unattended children/pets or tall car/short people, but I think it was more a big convenience boost.
Most people are idiots/lazy, and I say that on both sides (walkers and drivers). I see it more as making a robust solution a law, but doesn't necessarily benefit me to the extent that I want a mandated backup in my car personally.
That's a false equivalence - just because it's not an 'endemic' issue doesn't mean it shouldn't be fixed. I don't see why things getting run over by cars (think of immovable things as well) shouldn't be fixed?
The stats are clear. Back-over accidents are directly correlated with a) large vehicles and b) the high belt-lines and "as close to a truss as we can get away with" body lines that make modern vehicles "safer".
And yet drivers managed to (mostly) not back into kids for over 100 years, without rear cameras. You walk around the car before you throw it into reverse. The screens fix the "mostly" problem, but they're not a substitute for driving skill.
Some cars do have remote-control drive features these days, so you can reverse it from outside the car, but that's a super high-end feature (designed for getting in to and out of extremely tight city parking spaces) and relies on the chips that are in shortage, so that's not a solution.
We are but muggles, so I don't think we need to worry about teleporting children appearing in the time it takes you to get back in the car. You know your blind spot is clear and can see where your future blind spot is now.
Kids also used to stand in the back while being driven around. I certainly did. Not only were there no car seats, there weren't even seatbelts in the back. Putting kids and their toys in the back of a station wagon for a road trip used to be a thing. Everyone mostly made it out alive, and yet we still have laws against all of the above now, everywhere in the world.
> how do you back-up safely without a screen to show you what’s behind you?
The older style of parking sensors based on ultrasonic sensors which use beeps and a diagram of the car to indicate what’s behind you and how far away is superior to a camera and doesn’t require a screen (could be done with a few LEDs if necessary)
If you have to look at a camera in front of you to back up, you can’t see everything else in the field of vision behind you that’s not covered by the camera. Furthermore screens have much worse resolution and dynamic range than your eyes.
I don’t mind a touch screen for GPS/CarPlay. But control of the vehicles operation, environment and entertainment systems should have robust, tactile and intuitive physical input devices that don’t require eyeballs to use.
Not to get too far on a tangent but one of the best ways to increase intuition of a control is to provide haptic feedback. This guy has a few projects related to that, this video summarizes them pretty nicely. https://youtu.be/9Eh1p_rUQMA
> But control of the vehicles operation, environment and entertainment systems should have robust, tactile and intuitive physical input devices that don’t require eyeballs to use.
Last time we looked at cars we avoided anything like this, it was depressingly common.
Worst, I think, was Peugeot - the volume and (I think) AC were completely controlled by the touch screen - but you couldn't just press and hold, when you pressed it, it only moved one "setting" and you needed to tap-tap-tap to change more than one notch. Also, the above-steering HUD screen had frame-rate issues! It's completely absurd that they both sell this and people buy it.
We did end up going for a brand which had touch for radio channels/Carplay, but physical buttons for controlling AC, volume, start/stop/skip controls etc.
Porsche too: up until a few years ago they had a very strict policy of "one physical button / one function". Now lately they stuffed a bit too much gimmicks in their cars so they couldn't put everything behind buttons and they picked some kind of a happy middle ground: they've got a panel which physically moves and gives a great feedback (I think they're using quality microswitches underneathh the panel), but the icons showing on the panel can vary. They also have a touchscreen for the gimmicks, but everything important has physical controls.
I rented a car in Germany ones but unfortunately I dont remember if it was a BMW or Mercedes. It had a fancy but horrendous touch nob and I just couldn't figure out how to move the car. Car makers consider everything touch a premium feature. The more touch the better/expensive. But to be fair I'm also extremely turned off by how Tesla "reimagined" the door knob.
As far as I can tell everything that you would have operated with a button in a 90s car is still operated with a button without any need to look at the screens. They've simply added stuff on top of the existing controls.
AC, radio, massaging seats, windows and lights can all be operated without looking at screens. Sure, the navigation requires you to look at the screen (duh?). You don't have to use the navigation.
>I looked at that dial/joystick thingie, and was non-plussed.
You never need to touch this while driving. The UX does not encourage you to do so. Unless you use the built in navigation, you'll only be touching the dial to do things like pair phones and navigate settings menus.
Yup, it's basically the only time when I use the touchscreen in mine: I start the car, enter the GPS coordinates/address and then I control everything from my steering wheel, using buttons with real feedback and without needing to take neither my hands off the steering wheel nor my eyes off the road.
My car also happens to have a gimmick: "voice control / voice command" but it's only good when you're alone in the car. As long as there are people talking, it sucks. It also interrupts the music and I hate that. I do use it once in a while but I'm not a big fan.
Touchscreen sucks and those who don't even have haptic feedback: I don't even have words for that.
If I recall correctly there as least one major japanese car manufacturer who decided to get rid of touchscreens a few years ago. Good ridance, it's a poor system.
I generally like car UIs (I'm a fan of glossy things rather than flat things) but no amount of polish will make the layout not suck. Its usually designed for left hand drive cars and clusters common actions near the wheel, but won't change when you're in a right hand drive, causing you to lean across the centre console to use it. Android auto (and I'm hoping Apple's equivalent) mostly handles this amazingly, putting common functions actually close to you.
Its not all good, though. The Skoda Karoq has this split personality thing going on where it comes with its own sat nav, and that tries to take over your experience when you start navigating in Google maps. Its only a (first world) problem when you have the overly fancy glass cockpit, but it likes to replace your speedometer with a full screen map from the internal sat nav, which has none of the information from Google such as your next turn or the blue line showing your route.
At least in the UK there's no point in driving a RHD vehicle unless you frequent McDrive or some very strange parking garage. UK insurance is really terrible, getting European insurance for a RHD vehicle will be a pain in the ass. It's better to just not bother, it's not difficult or dangerous to drive a LHD car in a RHD country.
Totally agree with you. However, some times I think most of the people take what they're given and the 'radicals' are just a small percentage of the total. Manufacturers simply decide to make what is cheaper for them (see for example 16:10 vs 16:9 for monitors).
When I got a coin everytime I watch people in newer SUVs being entirely confused why the damn thing doesn't start now completely stunned by the sheer number of stuff on the dashboard and middle screen. Or tell their passengers to go fiddle with the aircon system because the cognitive load is too high while driving. Old cars with knobs you learn it once and you can use it without eyes.
No, I argue it's exactly what GP says. Consumers choose out of what's available on the market, not out of space of all possible products.
When purchasing complex goods like cars (or smartphones), there's way too many things to simultaneously optimize for, and enough confusion (mostly intentional) about relative performance, so most consumers focus on few major indicators like price, availability, cost of ownership, appearance, etc. Few people are going to trade on those major points to optimize something more specific, like lack of touchscreen (or having a headphone jack), so there's no meaningful market feedback on this, and vendors are free to dictate the choice to the market.
Unfortunately I think it's more driven by cost motivations. As noted in the Mk8 VW GTI review [1], the interfaces are often straight up awful, this being a particularly bad design. They're the biggest source of complaints/issues shortly after buying, and three years later.
Additionally, distractions are already abundant in a vehicle. A crappy user interface, which most are, is a safety concern. At minimum, lag between screens loading should be extremely minimal. Staring at a screen for an extra second or two while it registers that you pressed a button and updates the screen is incredibly dangerous and has surely lead to some number of deaths.
Two years ago Mazda announced they were moving away from touchscreens, which was very well received on HackerNews. [2]
And I can't find the thread right now, but 1-3 years ago there was a really good discussion on here about an eye tracking study in a variety of car models.
Touchscreen-only interfaces in cars are kind of like electronic-only voting machines. Technical people who know about computers breath funny thinking about it and see issues left and right while large swaths of people really want it.
>
Unfortunately I think it's more driven by cost motivations. As noted in the Mk8 VW GTI review [1], the interfaces are often straight up awful, this being a particularly bad design.
The car producer could save even more money if they released the non-security critical user-facing parts of the software as open source and let car enthusiasts fix the bad user interface.
I'd be good with that. I casually started looking at adding openstreetmaps in place of my outdated maps on my 2009 CR-V. From what I can tell, it's a proprietary system with proprietary formats. It doesn't look like it'll work, but I'd love to achieve it.
As a recent Mazda buyer, absolutely love the Mazda approach. The physical interface makes sense to me. The buttons feel right and work with a near-perfect springiness.
It's that they optimize for 1) what people like when they see it in the showroom, 2) costs, 3) what people like when they actually drive. In that order.
Here's a way to stop them: make it illegal to have car controls without tactile feedback. Changing volume or radio stations, changing AC, everything the driver might do in the car, should never be done only through a touchscreen, which is too distracting and unsafe.
In many EU countries it's definitely not illegal to use your smartphone while driving. Distracted driving is illegal, but using your smartphone doesn't automatically mean that you were distracted any more or less than using your car touchscreen would.
The real truth is that enforcement is non-existent and almost nobody gets in trouble for using a phone while driving even if it's specifically forbidden.
I had my heart set on a Toyota RAV-4 hybrid, until I actually sat down in the thing and saw the touch screen. Drove it around, other than the touchscreen it was nice, thought I might just have to suck it up and learn not to change settings while driving.
On a whim, I checked out the Mazda CX-5. I'd never considered buying a Mazda before, but I found out they had institutionally banned touchscreens in their cars. And the CX-5 was so much more of a joy to drive than the RAV-4 that it made for a pretty easy decision.
Originally their interface could only be controlled by a knob, so the knob is a 1st class citizen in navigation.
The touchscreen is there, but you never need to use it to navigate.
My 124 Spider uses a Mazda infotainment system, and that takes it a step further by only enabling the touchscreen at a standstill. Once the car is in motion only the knob works
Why are you posting this under an article about BMW? They've done the best job at this out of all the carmakers.
You can go buy a brand new 7er, all the important things have physical buttons. The screen is really only there for navigation and more complicated settings.
BMWs actually use a dial that you can rotate in the centre console of the vehicle. It's actually very intuitive and easy to use, and a _lot_ less distracting than a touchscreen is.
You know that this dial has a touch screen on top and you can draw with it? For example, it supposed to ocr letters for nav location. No idea who uses that...
Touch screen for CarPlay stuff - changing map to overview, selecting a different route when you’re stuck in traffic, pressing back 15 on Spotify etc, that’s great. Non essential stuff, alternate is a phone in a cradle with a worse touchscreen.
I’ve got a 2016 civic and the entire touch screen is taken over when you make a right turn or go into reverse. And it takes several seconds for the system to boot when you turn the car on which is especially irritating in very hot or very cold weather. That and the response is laggy and slow. And sometimes it just stops responding entirely and you have to reboot the touch screen. It’s very annoying “feature” of an otherwise lovely car.
I'm curious how touch screen glass cockpit pilots feel. Flying and messing with a touchscreen seems a lot more risky and dangerous on the surface, not to mention more difficult in turbulence thanks to bouncing around in three dimensions.
In an industry arguably more obsessed with safety (from regulators down to pilots), surely this would be a more heated debate in that space?
Agreed. Your not supposed to even touch your smartphone while driving, how is operating your car touchscreen-based head unit any safer?!
Dials and buttons provides a tactile feedback that allows you to keep focus on the road and can be operated even with gloves, which is great in Canada winter season.
I hope all that goes the way of most digital speedometers and tachometers from the 90s where most are back to analogue dials and a testament to tackiness.
> and car makers realize what a stupid idea touchscreens in cars were in the first place, and give up the idea completely.
Why such a binary view of the world? Agreed, putting everything sans turn light and wiper control behind a touchscreen is a pretty reckless form-over-functionality idiocy, as you cannot operate vital functions of your car safely while driving.
But that does not mean a touchscreen does not have its uses: Navigation, for one - a proper keyboard to enter addresses and phone numbers instead of that awful rotary thing (or the embedded write-a-single-letter touch thing) that BMWs use is so much faster to operate. Speech recognition is outright unusable outside of the English-speaking world or if you have children or a loud party going on in your car. Not to mention that it is insanely practical on a phone to be able to quickly rotate and zoom a map view for complicated intersections, and having that as a proper part of the car would be perfection.
Media is the other major case - there absolutely need to be rotary dials for volume, station change and muting (e.g. if you get in a police stop and your music is blasting, or you hear sirens and need to know from where they come), but playlist selection and creation is so much better on a well-designed touch UI than (again) using knobs of any kind.
I'll expound further: Any user interface that requires removing attention from the road should not be in reach of the driver while the car is operating.
Let the passenger run the laptop that controls the media center and engine profiles and flamethrowers. Have a "next track" "off" and "volume" buttons for the driver.
...and then there will be unicorns and flutterbugs and cotton candy, and everyone will be happy and nothing bad will ever happen again.