[HN Gopher] Apple CarPlay, Android Auto distract drivers more th...
___________________________________________________________________
Apple CarPlay, Android Auto distract drivers more than pot,
alcohol, says study
Author : cglong
Score : 113 points
Date : 2020-03-21 05:12 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.iamroadsmart.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.iamroadsmart.com)
| heavymark wrote:
| CarPlay obviously isn't meant to be safer than not using tech in
| a car, it's suppose to be safer than using a cell phone while
| driving which is most everyone at one time or another. So what
| masters is how safer it is using the system vs a handheld phone.
| kirykl wrote:
| I can ask Siri for directions when driving but then sometimes the
| phone needs to see my face to unlock it, which is
| counterintuitive. There should be an option for a verbal password
| drewg123 wrote:
| Its similar on Android. On my pixel, I'll often encounter this
| when trying to start music playin. Eg, "OK Google, open
| Spotify", only to have it reply "you need to unlock your phone
| for that".
| myrandomcomment wrote:
| You can unlock yourphone before you plug it in. There is a
| security feature that will require the phone be unlocked when
| connected to a USB device after not having been unlocked for a
| period of time.
|
| Change it here:
|
| Settings>Touch ID & Passcode>Allow Access When Locked
| gok wrote:
| One of the major benefits of CarPlay is that this is avoided,
| because there's a secure link established between the phone and
| car at setup time.
| princevegeta89 wrote:
| I hate how the new Android Auto update is so unintuitive. In the
| past, the "Ok Google" was one blind click away in my car (Acura).
| Now, it is the last option in the screen where you will have to
| first navigate and click. What a bummer...
| gnicholas wrote:
| If I'm understanding the study correctly, it's not that having
| one of these systems in your car results in you -- at all times
| -- being more distracted than if you had pot/alcohol in your
| system. Rather, when you are actively engaged in a task (eg, play
| song on Spotify), you are worse at lane centering and maintaining
| follow distance.
|
| That is not as bad because you can choose when to start playing a
| song, so that you do it when traffic is calm. If you're driving
| under the influence, that's affecting you the whole time.
|
| It would be interesting to see how these results look when the
| driver is performing tasks on a non-touchscreen setup. I can
| easily change the radio station in my car using steering-wheel
| mounted buttons, but changing the AC/heat is quite difficult
| without looking (in my Ford CMAX) because of the
| uniformity/location of the buttons. I'd guess the results would
| be similar to using a touchscreen setup.
| lawnchair_larry wrote:
| Yeah, the way they designed this test makes it meaningless in
| the real world.
| frankish wrote:
| Google glass was the best solution to this IMO. Able to look
| through the display and still see the road and more focus on
| voice control.
|
| We need advancements in integrating with computers already so
| that our brains can interface with them directly.
| capableweb wrote:
| Not sure why you're being downvoted, it sounds like an
| excellent idea on first glance. Have a pair of glasses (not
| necessarily Google but something similar) that you use when
| driving, that is connected to your car. Now you get information
| right where you're looking so you can always look at the road.
| chrstphrhrt wrote:
| Surprised to see cannabis reaction times slower than alcohol for
| driving. I wonder how they controlled for it, and whether the
| test accounted for high people driving slower and taking fewer
| risky moves like lane changes, turning corners without looking
| for pedestrians or speeding through yellow lights. Reaction time
| alone can be mitigated through adaptive behaviour, but not if
| you're not even looking at the road.
| tschellenbach wrote:
| Android Auto is my favorite buggy product. When it works, it's
| amazing and I keep on using it even though it fails in every
| possible way.
|
| When it's working well it's not distracting at all. When you run
| into bugs it's very distracting.
| thedance wrote:
| The bugs are mostly, in my experience, just cumulative jank
| resulting from excessive Android uptimes. Android, being about
| on-par with Windows 95 in terms of software quality, needs a
| daily reboot to keep itself running.
| Marsymars wrote:
| I once had my mom complain to me that nothing on her phone
| was working properly and discovered that it hadn't been
| restarted in something like ten months.
| different_sort wrote:
| I think the carploy interface via controls on the wheel is good
| on my '17 subaru, but I absoloutely agree it is NOT for use by
| the driver when in motion. It requires a lot of focus, and if I
| can't get siri to do something for me on it then I wait until my
| next stop.
| antidaily wrote:
| One of the tasks was finding a song on Spotify. Siri is pretty
| good at this with the right command (ex Play 'KV Crimes' by Kurt
| Vile on Spotify). But trying to find that via Spotify UI is
| nearly impossible while driving.
| pfarnsworth wrote:
| The worst is the Tesla interface. It's great to look at and if
| you're sitting in the car parked, but if you're trying to drive
| it is terrible. To be honest, stuff like this should be
| legislated away, it's too dangerous.
|
| Even something as mundane as turning on the fan requires several
| seconds of concentration because it's al. It's not like a regular
| car with buttons and knobs that you don't have to think about.
| You have to actively look for it as you drive which makes it very
| dangerous to use.
|
| As for Apple Carplay, I have as well, and it feels like the
| designers don't actually use it for driving. Some decisions are
| absurd. For example, a lot of the buttons you need to press are
| on the opposite side of the display (at least for cars with
| drivers on the left side). It's totally dumb that they are on the
| opposite side that needs to be hunted for.
|
| In terms of safety, big knobs and buttons are best.
| ape4 wrote:
| What happened to those screens with dynamic 3D buttons (like
| bubble wrap). I guess it didn't pan out.
|
| Edit: Found a video from 2014.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tcawBX41VU
| habosa wrote:
| I don't know what took me so long but I recently realized how
| many Bay Area drivers are driving while using their phones (I
| don't have a car). Every single day there are multiple accidents
| on 101 despite it being a straight line and traffic rarely going
| over 30mph at peak hours. How can this be? Easy: silicon valley
| professionals reading their email.
|
| I drove around Spain for 2 weeks and didn't see a single car
| accident of any kind. More manual cars (occupy your hands) and
| fewer digital distractions. I saw 3 accidents on my way back from
| Oakland airport to my house.
|
| US drivers need to get off their damn phones. It's so dangerous.
| danaris wrote:
| First of all, I saw this on another site (I have forgotten where,
| unfortunately) that actually showed the comparisons of
| CarPlay/Android Auto usage vs some other situations. However, it
| seems like a significant oversight that things like "changing the
| radio station" and "adjusting the climate control" were not in
| the comparison. I'd really like to see what that looks like.
|
| Second of all, it's horribly misleading to compare the degree to
| which using these systems impairs your driving to the degree to
| which being under the influence of alcohol or drugs does so. I
| have CarPlay, and while I fully recognize that paying attention
| to it to change things pulls my focus away from the road, I'm
| typically doing so for no longer than 2-5 seconds. Being drunk or
| high lasts much longer than that, and there's no way to just turn
| it off. Hell, even texting or a phone call takes orders of
| magnitude longer than that.
|
| I don't know if there's a particularly scientific way to do this,
| but my gut feel is that a more useful number would be something
| like the integral of distractedness over time--so find the length
| of time of a typical phone call, and multiply the phone call
| amount of distractedness by that, and assign some reasonable
| length to the total car journey, and multiply the drunk/high
| distractedness by that. Then compare that to the CarPlay/Android
| Auto distractedness multiplied by 2-5s times some typical number
| of times people adjust it during a trip of the designated length.
| leetcrew wrote:
| it's definitely important to distinguish between perfect,
| typical, and worst case usage scenarios. when I use android
| auto, I typically set up navigation and a playlist while the
| vehicle is stationary. (unfortunately I can't usually do this
| while parked nose-in, because using the backup camera crashes
| android auto four out of five times in my car.) I have to
| imagine this is way safer than any kind of intoxicated driving.
| on the other hand, I'd bet someone dragging google maps around
| to see the next turn on the highway is just as bad as driving
| with a BAC around 0.1. it's definitely a flaw in the study that
| they gave specific instructions to the drivers instead of just
| observing their natural behavior.
| oblib wrote:
| I really can't envision how anyone could think these toys would
| do anything other than distract drivers.
|
| Truth is driving requires one's full attention and any
| distraction is going to reduce safety, even in a self driving
| car.
|
| I don't really find it remarkable that it's worse than pot, or
| alcohol within the legal limit though. They didn't offer much
| info on the weed thing and that surely depends on how "high" one
| gets, but if they kept it within the same range as the legal
| limit of alcohol (a small toke or two) that's no surprise at all.
|
| I worked for years designing and building custom cars. Honestly,
| that giant screen in a Tesla is the craziest thing I've ever seen
| in a car, and I've helped build some pretty crazy cars.
| capableweb wrote:
| > Honestly, that giant screen in a Tesla is the craziest thing
| I've ever seen in a car
|
| Same here. I cannot understand how people are fine with it. I
| once had to drive a car who had it's GPS display further down
| (where the AC controls usually is, basically) so you had to
| glance down towards the shifting stick to be able to see where
| you are going. That feels like a similarly crazy idea. I'm
| lucky my car has a display that is as far up it can be without
| blocking the view out of the windshield.
| lacker wrote:
| This study is pretty garbage. They tested 20 people, and they
| didn't even pick 20 people who used CarPlay. They picked 20
| random people who didn't use CarPlay, briefly taught them how to
| use CarPlay, and then found that those people couldn't use it
| well. Imagine testing how distracting texting was for someone who
| had never used an iPhone before the test.
| appleshore wrote:
| One of the most absurd consequences of CarPlay is the USB car
| ports are often 1 amp. So my phone dies faster. Combined with
| Apple forcing you to use Apple Maps, makes me cynical of basic
| technology. This is partly what makes it more distracting.
| 76543210 wrote:
| You bought a product from a company known to lock people into
| their services then complain about this.
|
| Was it the constant commercials that sold you? The fruit logo?
| zwily wrote:
| You can use Google Maps on CarPlay now, I believe.
| rgovostes wrote:
| Yes, third-party navigation has been supported for two years
| now.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I guess wireless charging systems provide a benefit here
| because they decouple the data transfer from the charging.
| branon wrote:
| Is it just me, or does this source seem very unreliable?
| jchw wrote:
| I fully agree. But: I believe in many cases this is because, with
| both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay as I have used both for
| extended periods, they are simply buggy as hell.
|
| Some car vendors have better implementations than others, but I
| frequently see things happen like the connection suddenly cuts or
| audio playback becomes choppy or sometimes the dash crashes
| entirely.
|
| I suspect if it was less buggy it would be a lot less
| distracting, personally.
| dep_b wrote:
| I've driven a BMW that featured a HUD for the driver and I think
| that would be a great way to display a lot more information that
| CarPlay and co do now on the console.
| product50 wrote:
| These types of studies look so biased as they will only get
| covered in news channel if the results are anti-tech. There is no
| mention of how much distraction would "changing a radio station"
| or "adjusting car heating" will cause - and benchmarking against
| those. Good that this came out during the current COVID-19
| outbreak as the political brass is distracted enough to even
| consider this.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| I would say navigating a menu system takes more concentration
| than reading and tapping a msg with auto correct. Thus this study
| makes sense
| sumoboy wrote:
| What if you don't have CarPlay, trying to use Apple Music is a
| total joke with the worst UX. Even not driving it's a PIA to use.
| dang wrote:
| We merged comments hither from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22646564, which points to a
| cnet.com article about this study and was originally the thread
| on the front page. We kept its title.
| awinter-py wrote:
| woof touchscreens (though the chart makes it seem like voice is a
| problem too)
|
| the US navy is removing some screen-based controls after an
| accident -- this is less about distraction and more about the
| complexity of the interface, but still
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/11/20800111/us-navy-uss-john...
|
| mazda the car company made a similar move last year
|
| https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-mazda-is-pur...
| anon102010 wrote:
| Does anyone excercise any critical thinking skills with these
| headlines.
|
| Driving drunk is far far far more distracting and deadly than
| using carplay. Every Uber and lyft driver out there are running
| mapping apps. Every recent car is shipping with these (my wife's
| sister listens to her playlist on drive to work with it and uses
| the map).
|
| I've seen drunk drivers. Carplay has nothing on booze. In an
| overseas country an ex-pat wanted to drive me drunk back to where
| we were going to be working. Within 2 minutes I'd taken the keys
| and started driving myself because he was all over the road - we
| had to stop so he could throw up.
| threatofrain wrote:
| This study is a like micro-benchmark, and it makes sense to say
| that phone distracted driving can lead to a more acute loss of
| road awareness vs. being drunk, because your eyes might not
| even be on the road.
| klyrs wrote:
| > Does anyone excercise any critical thinking skills with these
| headlines.
|
| Critical thinking means carefully examining evidence, even if
| it challenges "common sense".
| gnicholas wrote:
| Also, people who are driving drunk might _also_ be using
| CarPlay. It 's not as if being drunk makes you immune to the
| distractions of CarPlay.
| anon102010 wrote:
| Just in case I wasn't obvious enough, the issue with drunk
| driving is around much more than distraction. Drunk driving
| involves failures of judgement and comprehension, drowsiness
| and vision impacts (literally will not see a pedestrian, will
| not register a red light, will fall asleep and have a head on
| collision). In addition, driving while drunk is a continues
| impact. If you drive an hour and a half home wasted, you are
| going to be at risk / causing risk that ENTIRE time.
|
| The article headline and narrative tries to generate a "carplay
| worse than drunk driving" narrative when this is totally
| unsupported.
|
| First, the slow reaction time was measured while the subjects
| were told to carry out tasks on carplay. These tasks were very
| specific. Like use the BBC iPlayer app (ugh!) to play a
| specific radio station. Find and play summer by Calvin Harris,
| send text messages etc. AND the setting were such that you
| could not use voice for some of this.
|
| OK - summer is in a ton of song titles, so finding summer by
| calvin hariss is going to take some typing. Making users use a
| THIRD party app on carplay is another whole issue.
|
| So yes - if you are a total idiot who disables voice control
| and is trying to type out complicated things on carplay and
| send messages using text - you are definitely going to be
| temporarily distracted. They presented little evidence that
| while in use fatalities increase because of this risk.
|
| My own observation is that folks stopped at stoplights are
| HIGHLY distracted by both their phones and infotainment.
|
| I use voice control which works well, and I only do three tasks
| - message wife I'm heading home, get directions to home
| (driving time and detours)and play podcasts. I say this while
| waiting to pull out of a parking garage. In terms of actual
| road risk this in minimal.
| Retric wrote:
| "A new study says _driver reaction times_ using this tech were
| worse than motorists with alcohol or cannabis in their system."
| Alcohol impacts more than reaction times, but a drunk driver
| can actually be paying attention to the road. On the the other
| hand someone looking at a screen at best can use peripheral
| vision which may not be enough. Touch screens at the bottom of
| the console are sadly common and unusually bad.
| bityard wrote:
| Actually, distracted driving and chemically impaired driving
| are two separate, orthogonal things. They exist independently
| of the other. A driver can be afflicted with either, both, or
| neither. One can be measured objectively (blood toxicity), the
| other cannot.
|
| We might read reports indicating that X number of accidents
| were caused by distracted driving, but distracted driving is
| very hard to prove because it is easy to deny. The only
| statistics we have on it are either when a driver admits to not
| paying attention, or when there is overwhelming evidence for
| it, such as video.
|
| I think we can easily assume that most at-fault drivers are not
| going to willfully admit to liability for causing an collision
| (especially if a party to the collision was hurt or killed), so
| it is safe to say that distracted driving is highly under-
| reported and underrated as a threat to road safety.
| hashkb wrote:
| Anecdotal! And your bias is obvious.
| jakear wrote:
| Massive difference between driving at 0.08 and driving while
| drunk enough that your body's survival is dependent on it
| violently expelling alcohol from your system.
| awinter-py wrote:
| yes, in theory the point of the limit is that it should be
| safe
| XzAeRosho wrote:
| I don't think the technology here is the problem. It's the
| implementation.
|
| Most screens are placed in the middle of the dashboard, when it
| should be close to the gauges or nearly in front of you.
| a012 wrote:
| What I got from cars ads (and also YouTube videos) is the
| infotainment system seems like a flashy selling point for the
| car. And not any system is decent, even the expensive cars have
| shitty large touchscreen that's laggy or/and has too many
| layers to go through in its user interface. It's the worst car
| trends in recent years.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| Touchscreens are simply cheaper. No need for switches, design
| of the controls, all the wiring, etc.
| awinder wrote:
| I have a CX-5 and think they did a good job with the
| infotainment even if it was a bit delayed. The touchscreen is
| off when car is in motion and there's steering wheel buttons
| + a rotating dial. tbh I just interact with Siri to set music
| or waypoints and maybe occasionally glance for gps.
| charles_f wrote:
| Apparently Mazda recently went through a bunch of studies
| to make the infotainment systems less dangerous, the result
| was that they're switching back to physical dials and
| bringing screens into more natural field of vision. I must
| say that I am somewhat seduced by the (at least seamingly)
| data driven process.
|
| Source https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121372_why-
| mazda-is-pur...
| leetcrew wrote:
| I'm curious how different it would be if you could control
| Android auto with physical buttons. I'm not sure why touchscreens
| are allowed in cars at all. you can't use them without looking
| directly at them.
|
| even voice can be distracting when you have to repeat variations
| of the same command five times and keep checking whether it
| actually works.
|
| I hope this kind of thing doesn't get banned entirely. when it
| works, I find that having a good navigation system allows me to
| pay more attention on actually driving the car.
| mstade wrote:
| My favorite interaction with CarPlay so far were the Mercedes
| models that had the little wheel in the center console that you
| could use to navigate. All you had to do was take a quick
| glance at the screen if you didn't already know how many clicks
| you had to turn the wheel, or if you did know you could do it
| without looking. In all the newer models I've driven they've
| replaced the wheel with a touchpad like thing which is awful.
|
| I'm in the market for a car, and I want something new or new-
| ish, but I can't find any cars I like without touchscreens all
| over the place. I'm now looking at used cars from around 2012,
| before all the touchscreen nonsense became pervasive, but still
| with most of the modern conveniences I'm in the market for. I'm
| not in a rush so I might just wait and see still, but I said
| that a couple of years ago as well and the touchscreen craze
| has just gotten worse I feel like.
| modzu wrote:
| i was looking for a "safe" car and that's why I didnt buy a
| current volvo. to add to the problem the screen is laggy too.
| kind of reminds me of cars before seatbelts. safety has come
| sooo much farther but seems we have a few new lessons to
| learn as we catch up with the shiny new tech.
| modzu wrote:
| what also bothers me about this is even if _I_ don 't buy
| one for the perceived safety risk, others can. the risk
| remains.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| I suspect it'll have to get solved the same way as seat
| belts did, too. For the same reason: Cost. A low-
| distraction interface is going to be more expensive to
| develop and manufacture than a touchscreen that can be
| largely assembled from commodity parts and some software.
| Cyberdog wrote:
| > A low-distraction interface is going to be more
| expensive to develop and manufacture than a touchscreen
| that can be largely assembled from commodity parts and
| some software.
|
| That seems bizarrely counter-intuitive as a more-or-less
| standardized low-distraction interface already exists for
| car radios.
|
| Okay, sure, you add the touch screen so you can do GPS
| and stuff, but is it really that hard to wire up a pre-
| existing car radio knob and buttons to an Android device
| along with some software to map twisting the knob to
| adjusting the audio volume and so on?
|
| It just baffles me how little apparent attention was
| given to this sort of thing. I wonder if these people are
| dogfooding.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| The way I read the _history_ section here
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt makes it sound
| like seatbelts are mandated.
|
| In what way is it cheaper to install seatbelts than not?
| mortenjorck wrote:
| I think what the GP is saying is that _because_ seatbelts
| were an added expense, the only way they were ever widely
| adopted was through legislation, and that distraction-
| minimizing infotainment systems will have to follow a
| similar path.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Right, sorry, yes, I see that now.
| gambiting wrote:
| What was your problem with the volvo specifically? I just
| collected a 2020 XC60 T8 and I have zero issues with it.
| Much much better than the infotainment system I had in my
| 2016 Mercedes, far more intuitive and very responsive. My
| only gripe so far is that if I navigate away from Android
| Auto I need to scroll left to bring it back up again.
| mstade wrote:
| I can't speak for OP but can echo the sentiments with
| laggy touchscreens in Volvos. I don't know about the 2020
| models or even 2019, but certainly the 2017-2018 models
| had issues in my experience. Maybe they've fixed them,
| but it left a sour taste in my mouth. I've always been a
| fan of Volvo's interface pre-touchscreens, they just made
| sense to me somehow. This is why I'm looking at a late
| model C70 as a potential purchase.
| gambiting wrote:
| 2019 and onwards got much faster CPUs. I was aware of
| people complaining about the speed and laginess of the
| interface on the models before then, but it's not been a
| problem in my experience, everything is pretty
| responsive.
| mstade wrote:
| Ah right that might be it then. The older models
| definitely had issues, to the point where you weren't
| sure if it had actually registered the press or if it was
| just being slow. The worst of it was the inconsistency,
| it would sometimes be responsive, and most of the time
| not. Glad to hear the 2020 models seem better!
| pintxo wrote:
| Have you considered a BMW with their iDrive controller for
| the satnav/entertainment?
|
| I have yet to find a car with a better UX (aside from road
| handling, which I find equally good, but that's another
| topic).
|
| Touchscreens should only be allowed in cars with self-driving
| capabilities, and probably only on the higher levels.
| dmitriid wrote:
| I have, and I find it abhorrent.
|
| In some lists the scrolling wraps around. In some it
| doesn't. Sometimes it's a click on an item. Sometimes it's
| a shift to the side.
|
| And the systems I've seen (in BMW's DriveNow) have the
| worst feature of them all. The main screen where you have
| your selection of things to do (Nav, Car options, Media,
| Radio etc.) is not a fixed list, it's an _MRU_ list.
|
| So, if let's say radio is the very last item on the right
| side of the main screen, and you chose it, the next time
| you go back to the main screen, it will be the first on the
| left side of the screen. Now use Nav, go back. Now Nav is
| the first item and radio is the second item.
|
| It is my long standing theory that people who design car
| interfaces have never seen a car in their entire life much
| less have driven one.
| WWLink wrote:
| I've heard great things about BMW's system, only because
| you can bind the hotkeys to any screen/feature you want.
| But there's only like 8 and they all look the same.
| pintxo wrote:
| True, but they stay at the exact same location, so it's
| easy to memorize.
|
| (And just hovering/slightly touching the key will show
| the current setting in the display.)
| pintxo wrote:
| Is this a newer thing? I drive a 2009 model and this is
| surely a fixed list there. I agree, an MRU would drive me
| crazy.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| IIRC Mazda is looking to remove touch from their driver UI.
| fingerlocks wrote:
| I think most of them have this feature. In a Subaru you can
| the radio tune dial to navigate instead of touching.
| scirocco wrote:
| Audi A5 - still a small wheel in the 2017 model
| jquery wrote:
| The newer models (2019, at least) still have that wheel as an
| option. I love it. I didn't realize how great it was until I
| had to rent a car with touchscreen CarPlay for a couple weeks
| and it SO distracting compared to the Mercedes wheel.
| i_am_proteus wrote:
| Car manufacturers should look to motorcycles for minimal-
| distraction UIs. I have a late-model BMW touring bike which
| has a sizeable number of features (adjustable suspension,
| throttle response, grip heaters, cruise control), all of
| which can be controlled by feel/touch from buttons on the
| handlebars.
|
| That said, car drivers really should get in the habit of
| making playlists so they can set up music and maps before
| they start rolling.
| chillwaves wrote:
| My Android Auto has limited features compared to the app,
| for example you cannot make a new playlist, only access
| existing ones.
|
| I'm sure it can be distracting, but it is also easy to set
| up with minimal interaction.
|
| Ultimately, it comes down to individual behavior.
| ben940830298432 wrote:
| BMW has a pretty decent non-touch infotainment system. It is
| a wheel style but they do also offer touch if you want to use
| that.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| This is something Apple could, at least in theory, fix on its
| end.
|
| Right now, CarPlay interfaces with steering wheel remotes in
| the standard way where prev/next buttons change tracks and
| volume +/- changes the volume. What Apple could do is this:
| _add a toggle somewhere in the OS that remaps these to cursor
| controls._ This would, without any effort required on the
| part of auto manufacturers, bring something comparable to the
| Mercedes control system to the majority of CarPlay compatible
| vehicles on the road, all via an OS update.
| PascLeRasc wrote:
| Audi Carplay has this too, their screens don't even allow
| touch.
|
| I put a Sony XAV-1000 in my '07 Honda Fit recently, it was
| the only Carplay unit I could find with a physical volume
| knob. You can hold the volume knob down to activate Siri, so
| I never have to actually use the touchscreen. It's been very
| nice for Apple Maps/Spotify, I'd recommend looking into it.
| chipotle_coyote wrote:
| I don't _think_ variants of this are particularly uncommon,
| at least in newer cars -- on my Honda Insight, I can hold
| down a button on my steering wheel to activate Siri.
|
| (Personally, I don't think I find CarPlay any more
| distracting than any other in-dash screen; I'm not looking
| down at the car's built-in navigation system any more than
| I'm looking at Apple Maps on the same screen. But, I also
| tend to listen to podcasts while driving, so once they're
| playing and the map destination is set I rarely have much
| impulse to fiddle with things.)
| gkfasdfasdf wrote:
| Do you really use physical buttons on the dash without looking
| at them? I can't in any of my vehicles.
| x3n0ph3n3 wrote:
| I absolutely develop tactile memory of the stereo and A/C
| control panels.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Not even from a safety perspective, but from a UX ergonomics
| perspective:
|
| Give me a D pad, an OK and a Cancel button. And make a phone
| API that works exclusively by that and the sounds and chimes it
| outputs.
|
| I just want every supported app to be in a top level list that
| I arrow through and OK. Then within any app the options are all
| navigable in simple ways. Overall functionality is reduced.
|
| Voice control is a secondary system altogether.
| xenospn wrote:
| I agree. I don't think touchscreens in cars should be a thing.
| Anything that requires you to look away from the road is a huge
| distraction, especially a giant colorful screen.
| ghaff wrote:
| It almost feels as if we pretend that "hands free" solves the
| distraction problem. In practice, I find that voice commands
| don't work reliably enough most of the time and, as you say,
| add the increasing frustration of repeatedly trying things and
| cursing at Siri or Google.
| viburnum wrote:
| If I try to do voice commands while driving my field of
| vision narrows to a pinprick.
| scarejunba wrote:
| Hey I've noticed this too. It's like I'm mentally somewhere
| else. Very odd. Fortunately, when I drive long distances I
| have other people in the car. And when I drive short
| distances, I can just stop wherever and change things.
|
| Honestly, on 101 and 280 I see drivers texting all the time
| and they're driving right in the lane, no problems at all
| except being slow to react to what happens in front of them
| (which makes it obvious they're on the phone). I don't know
| how they do it. Even glancing down at my phone instead of
| the center console loses so much state.
| Marsymars wrote:
| > I hope this kind of thing doesn't get banned entirely. when
| it works, I find that having a good navigation system allows me
| to pay more attention on actually driving the car.
|
| Anecdotally, over the years I've been driving, a majority of
| potentially collision-causing mistakes I've made (and that I've
| noticed) have been when I've been cognitively distracted by
| navigation systems and was looking for a turn/exit or thinking
| ahead for a turn/exit.
|
| I've adjusted to always prioritize real-time safety even if it
| comes at the cost of missing my turn and having to double back
| to get where I'm going. I believe that following nav directions
| in real-time comes at a safety cost, and am skeptical that many
| people both realize this and make the appropriate adjustments.
| sosborn wrote:
| > I've adjusted to always prioritize real-time safety even if
| it comes at the cost of missing my turn and having to double
| back to get where I'm going.
|
| To me, this is where GPS shines. If I miss an exit, it isn't
| a big a deal because the GPS will tell me the best route
| based on my current circumstances.
| jsight wrote:
| I find that to be true, and actually consider this an
| advantage of GPS. I remember being super careful not to miss
| turns before it, because getting back might be difficult or
| confusing in some cases.
|
| Now, I don't care so much. GPS can route me back pretty
| easily if I miss anyway.
| chillwaves wrote:
| This is the attitude we need collectively. It no longer
| matters as much to miss a turn, GPS will optimize the best
| route moving forward.
|
| Some people are however, still unwilling to be delayed no
| matter the danger.
| tomp wrote:
| Depends on the circumstances. On a roundabout, the cost
| of missing an exit is minimal. On a highway, it's often
| 30km, and can be much higher (we once missed an exit and
| ended in Mexico on a 3hour illegal detour).
| leetcrew wrote:
| I'm guessing this is a ymmv type situation. I personally find
| navigation to be by far the most stressful part of driving. I
| have a bad tendency to flip binary directions like
| left/right, east/west, etc. when I first had my license
| (before navigation apps for your smartphone really existed),
| I had to spend a lot of my cognitive budget trying to
| remember whether the turn at X St was a right or left and not
| paying as much attention to the evolving situation on the
| road. I'm always willing to miss an exit/turn if I notice it
| too late or there isn't room to merge safely. if anything,
| I'm more willing to miss a turn in an unfamiliar area when I
| know the nav system will automatically find a new route.
|
| this probably varies depending on your spatial reasoning
| skills. my brother can take a quick look at a map and
| remember the connectivity of all the major roads and then
| navigate from memory. whenever I try this, I end up in a
| stressful loop of miss turn -> find place to pull over to
| look at map -> miss turn again. stress has a comparable
| impact to driving safety as distraction in my experience.
| Krasnol wrote:
| I had one of those portable navigation systems before in my
| old car and had it mounted on the lower left end of the front
| window. It was perfect. I never felt distracted or in need to
| leave the street out of my view for longer.
|
| Now I have a quite large navigation screen in the mid console
| and those optional arrows next to my speedometer. It really
| took some time to get me to not look and the centre screen.
| It took even longer to get used to just listen to what the
| computer lady says.
|
| I can't understand how this centre screen has become a safe
| standard. Especially in countries like Germany where there is
| no speed limit. It's a toy for passengers.
| jsight wrote:
| Who cares about Android Auto with specific buttons, I wanted
| them to compare the same tasks to a old device.
|
| How distracting is it to play a specific song on a radio from
| 1999? Or a specific FM radio station that isn't already
| programmed?
| mlavin wrote:
| 2000 Volvo with same radio interface as the earlier 850. For
| playing a particular song, rest my wrist on the shift lever
| and push seek next until it gets to the right track. For a
| specific station, same button until it lands on that station.
| Not particularly distracting, and minimal glancing at the LCD
| readout that only shows current frequency or track number.
| jacobsenscott wrote:
| Physical buttons are much safer, and this is well known within
| the industry. But touch screens are cheap and easy - so
| automakers won't go back to physical buttons unless they are
| forced to by regulators.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| In fact that is why the audio buttons on the steering wheel are
| the only way I can listen to music off my phone. If I gotta
| unlock my phone and look down to find the "button" on screen
| its too distracting for my comfort level.
|
| I dont know how people can text and drive. I usually see cars
| swerving and driving way too slow into a high way and it always
| turns out they are texting up a storm when you look.
| leetcrew wrote:
| they just don't realize how obvious it is from outside the
| vehicle. that's the scary part.
| thedance wrote:
| You can control android auto with physical buttons. It's really
| up to the car makers. In my car I rarely need the touchscreen.
| I use a pixel 3a in a Honda Clarity.
| copperx wrote:
| Mazdas have a physical wheel to control Android Auto and
| CarPlay. I couldn't live without it. Also true for Toyota
| Yaris and the older Scion iA.
| capableweb wrote:
| > I'm curious how different it would be if you could control
| Android auto with physical buttons
|
| You can, if the car is made that way of course, but the
| software supports it. I would not buy a car knowing it's only a
| touchscreen. At least in my car, the radial controls the focus
| on Android Auto and press it down to select. The screen is not
| a touch screen.
| JCharante wrote:
| Is it true that you can't use touchscreens in cars without
| looking at them? I don't drive so I wouldn't know, but my
| experience touch typing on my smartphone (and I don't use it
| very often) and as a cashier during high school who used a
| touch screen point-of-sales system would lead me to believe
| otherwise. Sure you can't keep track of its state the entire
| time, but you only need to glance at it to know what
| state/screen to operate/navigate from.
| debaserab2 wrote:
| > you only need to glance at it
|
| I think you answered your own question.
| harumph wrote:
| Obviously I can't say if this is universally true, but it is
| most certainly true for me. I have CarPlay, and I do my
| damnedest to control it with Siri. It always feels incredibly
| dangerous to use the touchscreen.
|
| Because of the problems I have with Siri, I end up using the
| touchscreen much more than I'd prefer. My latest defensive
| habit is to queue up enough audio for the trip and not touch
| it again until I arrive.
|
| I would definitely prefer hardware buttons.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| Glancing takes a long time because your eyes don't just have
| to flick to and fro, you need to actually refocus your
| vision, scan for and find the object or point you're
| intending to look at, switch contexts, then do it all over
| again.
| mstade wrote:
| I drive a lot and quick glance is usually fine I'd say, but
| touchscreens often require more than a glance because the UI
| isn't as static as a typical dashboard. You lose context
| between apps, and so you end up having to look a bit longer.
| But the worst part isn't the glancing to be honest, the worst
| part is that when you're driving there are all these little
| changes in the road that makes you miss your target on the
| screen. Maybe it's a little bump or maybe there's a tiny
| adjustment in the steering that does it, but you end up
| tapping the wrong thing so often you then have to go back and
| fix things, and that's where you get into trouble I find
| because now your attention is truly divided.
|
| I like CarPlay, and found in the Mercedes models that had the
| little control wheel in the center console it worked well,
| because you had a physical switch to interface with CarPlay,
| but had the flexibility of the screen. I'm no expert, but I
| drive a lot of different cars and that so far is my favorite
| way of interacting with CarPlay.
|
| I'd still prefer a simple dashboard with physical controls
| though.
| amluto wrote:
| As the owner of a modern car, PoS systems are in a whole
| different league than cars. In particular, PoS vendors
| actually care about making usage efficient.
|
| In my car, if I want to increase the fan speed, I need to tap
| a small target, wait while the system lags out, and then tap
| a new target on a popup. Meanwhile, I'm trying to focus on
| the road at (effectively) infinity. It's distracting and
| unsafe.
|
| In my old, very well designed 1991 car, I could push the
| button to do this. It had two major benefits: it never moved
| and I could feel it. Touchscreens can't replicate the feel of
| a button, but they could at least have the decency to keep
| controls in the same place.
| chipotle_coyote wrote:
| This is my big objection to Tesla's "touch screen for
| everything" approach. I know Tesla fans love it, but in
| _my_ modern car (a 2019 Honda Insight), if I want to change
| the fan speed -- or anything else about the A /C -- I touch
| a physical button or twist a physical knob.
| tyfon wrote:
| You can change the fan speed (and much more) in a tesla
| via buttons on the steering wheel.
| amluto wrote:
| Yes. By pressing a scroll wheel to pop up a menu, then
| scrolling through the menu to select a mode, then
| pressing the scroll wheel again to select a mode, then
| scrolling once more to peform the desired action.
|
| This may well be better than using the touchscreen, but
| it's still bad.
| tyfon wrote:
| Yes the best way is to use voice control. You can tell
| the tesla to "set fan speed to 2" and it will do it.
| Voice commands are the safest imho.
|
| But at least in my car I only need to select fan speed in
| the first menu then scroll do actually change it. This in
| a model x. But I was really responding to the "100% touch
| screen" statement.
| amluto wrote:
| I have never gotten my Tesla to understand a voice
| command like this. I could get music and phone calls, and
| that was it. The second-to-last update that supposedly
| made it better instead broke voice commands almost
| completely. Supposedly the update from a couple days ago
| is better.
|
| In contrast, IIRC a 2007 Prius could do this type of
| voice command with no obvious difficulty.
| tyfon wrote:
| That was my experience before the christmas update but
| after that it understands almost everything I say both in
| my south-western Norwegian dialect (if I set it to
| Norwegian) and my English.
|
| The only bug I've found so far was when I said "open
| driver door" and it displayed "opening trunk" and it
| slammed it into my garage door!
| amluto wrote:
| I'm guessing my particular combination of hardware
| versions just got broken. I have MCU1 and the old
| Mercedes-style wheel. After the Christmas update, it
| couldn't recognize anything. I think I got it to make a
| phone call once.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| A point of sales system has the distinct advantage of _not_
| travelling at a combined speed of 60 metres / 200 feet per
| second.
| leetcrew wrote:
| the button targets are much smaller on most infotainment
| screens. also, the vehicle being in motion makes it a lot
| harder to rely on muscle memory.
| tyfon wrote:
| My fingers have pretty much memorised the few things I
| sometimes change from the screen while driving in my tesla,
| but 99% of what I would use the screen for can also be done
| via the buttons on the wheel / voice command. I still glance
| over when I do hit the screen though to make sure I did it
| correctly.
|
| I think with the latest update I can also control the active
| suspension via voice which is the only thing I still use the
| display for while driving except for hitting cancel on the
| navigation once in a blue moon. Cancelling navigation might
| also be available via voice command now, I haven't checked.
|
| In any case, voice and physical buttons (on the steering
| wheel) is much safer than touching or buttons below the
| screen the screen regardless. At least I feel much more in
| control personally when I can keep my eyes on the road and
| not glance away / feel my way to a spot on the screen.
| ulkesh wrote:
| Was this peer-reviewed? How does it compare with normal radio
| head units?
|
| Anecdotally, I find CarPlay to not be distracting at all, mainly
| because I don't fiddle with it while driving. I set up things
| ahead of time or I have a front seat passenger to help.
| brenden2 wrote:
| Computer screens are incredibly distracting regardless of the
| make or brand. It's basically a backlit distraction generator.
|
| As a side note, I'm not a big fan of LCD displays in cars. I
| prefer analog gauges/dials/knobs, with minimal illumination for
| night time. At night, the less light you have inside the car, the
| easier you can see outside. Plus your eyes will be more well
| adjusted.
| modzu wrote:
| until driving anywhere with other people and their 2 million
| lumen led/laser headlights
| aibara wrote:
| LCDs around the gauge cluster seem to encourage the display of
| extraneous information and eye candy, from making what should
| be a simple gauge extra gaudy and shiny, to adding useless
| images and readings all around (look at these leaves! Your car
| is so efficient!).
|
| My friend had an old Saab with the "Black Panel" button, which
| turned off all internal lights save the speedometer. If other
| readings became relevant (e.g., running low on gas), that gauge
| or light would illuminate. I drove a Peugeot 208 a few years
| ago with a similar function. I wish I could find a vehicle with
| something similar, but design is clearly moving in the opposite
| direction.
| oceliker wrote:
| You could have a similar thing in the future if OLED panels
| in cars become feasible.
| mouzogu wrote:
| This argument keeps recurring and I find it quite annoying. How
| is CarPlay or AA anymore distracting than having a tiny phone
| screen on your dashboard? Also, I think its more likely that the
| notifications for certain apps are distracting as opposed to the
| software in general which is incredibly useful (Maps, Spotify
| etc).
|
| I don't understand the motivation behind these studies. Is there
| some financial gain to be made from this. Or perhaps I'm being
| too cynical.
| Marsymars wrote:
| > How is CarPlay or AA anymore distracting than having a tiny
| phone screen on your dashboard?
|
| I don't think anyone is making that argument.
|
| The argument is that you shouldn't be using your phone via
| _any_ interface while driving, because it isn 't safe.
| mrweasel wrote:
| If it wasn't going to cause problems for people in trains or
| busses, I would suggest a law requirering phones to turn
| off/hibernate if they detect that they are moving faster fast
| than 10km/h.
| Marsymars wrote:
| I'd be satisfied with simply stepping up police manpower
| for enforcement, and then much stronger punishment. e.g.
| for first-time violators, license revocation for a year,
| after which the individual is allowed to re-apply as a new
| driver, with all of the testing/license
| restriction/insurance implications of being an entirely new
| driver.
| scarface74 wrote:
| It's not a law, but iOS can automatically turn on "Do not
| disturb while driving." It can turn on automatically either
| when it detects that you're going over a certain speed or
| when you're connected to Bluetooth or CarPlay.
|
| The second option would be able to distinguish if you are
| driving your car or riding in someone else's car or on
| public transportation. Assuming that you're not paired to
| your non primary vehicle.
| cutemonster wrote:
| > don't understand the motivation behind these studies
|
| 1.3 million traffic fatalities yearly (worldwide).
|
| Good to know if/when new tech distracts the drivers and adds to
| that 1.3 number?
| aganame wrote:
| The only way my car will have a big screen on the dashboard is if
| it's an option to 100% ignore oit while driving.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| I could never get it work with my VW Polo headunit. Was just
| plain confusing and that was on a Samsung A70 while my daughter's
| iPhone worked out of box.
| mindslight wrote:
| I suspect this goes for all input based on a touch screen. Touch
| screens are horrible interfaces, which caught on because they're
| generic and fully reconfigurable by each app. But this
| reconfigurability pushes them into your low-level OODA loop,
| using your attention in imperceptible spurts rather than taking
| advantage of muscle memory, doubly so when the UI code is laggy.
|
| I'm certainly not condoning the practice, but texting and driving
| wasn't a serious public hazard until everyone moved away from T9.
| T9 was a deterministic input method, and while sure maybe you
| would look at the message before sending, each individual letter
| required little attention.
|
| Back before smart phones / GPS navigation / etc took off I did a
| two month cross country trip using a Garmin 60CSx (handheld GPS
| with hard buttons) as a live map. In car-cities, I held the unit
| in my shifting hand, and checking the map was effortless as it
| was always in the state I expected it to be.
|
| Holding the touch screen in your hand, and thus having more
| predictable positioning, is a setup up from using a touch screen
| mounted on the car's interior, which is moving relative to you
| from road bumps etc. Even worse are OEM touchscreens that have
| poor response. I'd love for more studies to be done on this
| subject to create better data, but I also wonder how much it will
| be fought by car manufacturers that have gone all-in on
| touchscreens in the center console (which seems to be all of
| them).
| GuB-42 wrote:
| A similar study was made for phone calls, with similar results.
|
| The counter argument is that while it is easy to let go of the
| phone when things get tricky. You can't sober up at will.
| ken wrote:
| If that were true, how do explain studies (like this one) that
| show that _hands-free_ devices also hurt reaction time worse
| than alcohol? Drivers don 't even need to "let go of the
| phone". They're looking straight ahead, and they have to
| respond to a big red rectangle, right in their field of vision.
| Yet somehow, they're still worse at it than people who have
| been drinking.
| akadruid1 wrote:
| I don't think it's as easy to let go as people think. Phone
| apps are designed to be engaging. If you watch footage of
| distracted drivers who cause crashes, they don't realise their
| brain has disengaged from the vital task. There is a harrowing
| example video here: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-
| news/2016/oct/31/lorry-driver...
| jjulius wrote:
| >The counter argument is that while it is easy to let go of the
| phone when things get tricky.
|
| And the counter-argument to that is that things can get tricky
| faster than you would expect. So tricky that even the time it
| takes for you to react and put your phone down or drop it still
| wouldn't give you enough time to prevent an accident.
|
| People need to stop paying attention to phones while driving,
| period.
| macintux wrote:
| There's also pressure from phone calls that you don't get
| when you're talking to someone in the vehicle: people on the
| other end can't see the traffic situation, so they don't know
| to shut up and let you drive, and there's social pressure on
| the driver to not let their surroundings distract them away
| from the phone call.
| floatingatoll wrote:
| I have several times in my life thrown my phone out of
| reach with no regard for who's on the call
|
| They understood, later. They weren't necessarily happy but
| when you explain to people "do you want me alive or do you
| want me to talk to you", their self-interest seems to kick
| in, at least.
| mrweasel wrote:
| The fix for phone are certainly easier, just disable all
| controls if the phone is moving at more than 10km/h while
| paired to the car and disable all incoming notification.
| [deleted]
| karlding wrote:
| On a similar note, what happened to cars that would lock you out
| of interacting with the infotainment system whenever you were
| driving faster than parking lot speeds? I assume this was some
| regulatory/safety requirement.
|
| I remember cars used to either implement that feature, or
| outright prevented you from even pairing a new Bluetooth device
| when your car was in Drive. But then all of a sudden it seemed
| like automotive companies stopped and touchscreens became
| acceptable. Does anyone know what changed?
| lawnchair_larry wrote:
| Nothing, they still lock out those features. They have never
| locked out basic controls like changing inputs or
| start/stop/play, or some deep menu navigation. They do lock out
| things like typing a GPS destination, but not selecting a pre-
| set.
|
| The NHTSA guidelines are here:
| https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/distraction_...
| tinza123 wrote:
| I found Android Auto dangerous because it works great normally,
| but when it stops working I tend to get a little panicking and
| intuitively try to "Fix" it while I'm driving. And that happened
| too often so I quit using it all together.
| mindslight wrote:
| I suspect this goes for all input based on a touch screen. Touch
| screens are horrible interfaces, which caught on because they're
| generic and fully reconfigurable by each app. But this
| reconfigurability pushes them into your low-level OODA loop,
| using your attention in imperceptible spurts rather than taking
| advantage of muscle memory.
|
| I'm certainly not condoning the practice, but texting and driving
| wasn't a public emergency until everyone moved away from T9. T9
| was a deterministic input method, and while sure maybe you would
| look at the message before sending, each individual letter
| required little attention.
|
| Holding the touch screen in your hand, and thus having more
| predictable positioning, is a setup up from using a touch screen
| mounted on the car's interior, to which you're moving relatively
| with road bumps etc. Even worse are OEM touchscreens that have
| poor response. I'd love for more studies to be done like this,
| but I also wonder how much it will be fought by car manufacturers
| that have gone all-in on touchscreens in the center console
| (which seems to be all of them).
| saagarjha wrote:
| This is one place where voice assistants could help. They can't
| right now because they're not good enough to rely on: I for one
| don't trust Siri to do what I tell it, or even know how, without
| taking my eyes off the road to make sure. So the CarPlay system
| ends up underutilized because I can't afford doing that.
| ashleyn wrote:
| There is also the privacy issue. Using Google voice in the car
| requires I turn on its always-listening functionality. Nope!
| saagarjha wrote:
| Is there no "press a button to listen" or "wait until you
| hear a wakeword" option?
| ashleyn wrote:
| There is in my car, but Google at least forces users to
| accept the "OK Google" functionality when they agree to the
| voice activation disclaimer. So once you enable that, the
| phone is always listening for "OK Google".
| ken wrote:
| Everyone is focusing on the touchscreen, because those are easy
| to point a finger at (pun intended). In fact, this study
| confirmed what we already knew from previous research: even
| hands-free phone interfaces are terrible for driving.
|
| The best hands-free reaction time in this study was still more
| than twice as bad as the effect from alcohol.
|
| You simply can't operate a motor vehicle and a
| computing/communications device at the same time without
| seriously affecting your competency at both. Humans aren't built
| for that kind of multitasking. I don't anticipate any new
| technology which might change that.
| sjwright wrote:
| You probably spend less than a few percent of your driving time
| navigating a touchscreen. And most of the time drivers will
| allot those tasks to reduced risk moments such as when
| stationary at a traffic light.
|
| When you're drunk, you're drunk every second of the journey.
| You're drunk at every intersection, you're drunk at every
| pedestrian crossing, you're drunk every meter of motorway.
|
| They're not comparable.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| You can and it's rather simple. You just need physical buttons
| and a deterministic interface, like pretty much every phone had
| until the iPhone.
|
| Pick a number to call from your contacts, or type it out, or
| even pick a contact and type out a whole message using one hand
| without as much as a glance at the screen.
| rusbus wrote:
| It's totally possible to make touch screen displays that can be
| operated in bumpy environments without looking at them --
| Aviation has been using them for some time. Instead of clicking
| on buttons, interactions only require touching entire regions
| (eg. top and bottom half) of the screen when input is requested.
| (See apps like XCSoar, LK8000, etc.)
|
| The problem is that they are either hard to learn to use, or
| really ugly. It's always really bugged me that Google Maps on a
| phone (or in Android Auto) has tiny buttons that are impossible
| to click for the most basic tasks.
|
| It doesn't have to be this way.
| aequitas wrote:
| What's I found even more frustrating about google maps is that
| one time it promted me to perform a survey about the app
| itself. During a trip, whilst driving. It was not a local guide
| thing or a play store thing. It redirected to a page inside the
| maps app which was just impossible to use whilst driving (and
| not much better when not driving also). Needless to say I
| didn't finish the survey. I wanted to complain about the fact I
| even got the survey in-app. But later there was also no way to
| get back to it.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2020-03-21 23:00 UTC)