When they arrived in our modern cars, everyone fell in swoofer in front of these touch screens, sometimes worthy of the best tablets, and supposed to simplify our life thanks to this unprecedented technology in our habitacles. Except that the all-technological has not only good, and sometimes we must recognize when you make mistakes. The screens on the dashboards are one.
Their often complicated use is even more so for the driver riding. What if we returned to the pimples, the wheels and the switches? These remains of another age may well become our best allies against inattention behind the wheel, the Popular Mechanics site says in a column.
Generation Z, bottled with touch interfaces, may see this defense of the old mechanical orders, but the facts are stubborn: adjusting the air conditioning via a menu buried in three sub-aging diverts attention much longer than a simple movement of the wrist to a dedicated wheel.
“”The overuse of touch screens forces drivers to leave the road to the eyes, increasing the risk of accident“, Matthew Avery of Euro NCAP. The European organization dedicated to road safety should publish its new safety criteria planned for 2026, criteria that could ring the death knell for all-tactile.
The buttons war
The buttons of vehicles that have not bet everything on a central screen are generally placed so that the driver can reach them without having to leave the road, like headlights or wipers. Tactile screens require much more concentration. Unable to select a menu without watching the screen directly. An observation confirmed by a Swedish study which claims that the reaction time in the face of a danger can double when you have to tip over on a screen.
Faced with these reproaches made by road safety professionals as by individuals (65% of them would prefer classic buttons), some manufacturers seem to backtrack. Volkswagen, Honda and Subaru are reconnecting with traditional knobs and physical buttons in their new models.
Even Tesla, a pioneer in the field and whose vehicles proudly wear a gigantic screen as a dashboard, may have to review her copy to keep her precious 5 stars Euro NCAP … Even if small knobs are clearly not the number 1 concern for Elon Musk at the moment.
By sacrificing ergonomics on the altar of aesthetics, and giving in to the sirens of all-technological, the manufacturers have complicated the use of their vehicles, and endangered the lives of drivers.
