Written by | Little devil
As a driver, you and I may have experienced this kind of thing in driving, when we should have focused on the road ahead, and suddenly we were distracted by mobile phones, car radios or navigation systems.
So because of that brief glance, his car crashed into another car, a road pit, a dog... Or worse.
Although we all know that we have an unshirkable responsibility for the occurrence of such accidents as drivers, because we are not paying enough attention when driving, what role do automakers play when most of these accidents occur? Maybe they're not as "innocent" as they seem.
Auto safety experts believe that the automotive industry has even added "a fire" to our driving distractions, because they are cramming more and more complex technologies into the car, overloading our brains with all kinds of information and entertainment content, and this is precisely when we should focus on protecting ourselves and other road users from harm.
For example, Ian Jack, head of public affairs at the Canadian Automobile Association (CCA), has publicly stated: "This is a major problem, and it is getting worse." In the car, it is becoming increasingly challenging for people to use and manage infotainment systems. ”
Independent tests have shown that even activities like eating and talking to passengers distract drivers enough to reduce their ability to recognize and respond to dangerous situations.
But now for the CCA, it is particularly concerned about the impact of equipping cars with increasingly complex infotainment systems, a concern that peaked in December 2021.
At that time, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) officially launched an investigation into Tesla's "car game" function, after which Tesla agreed to turn off the "passenger play" function, so that drivers and passengers can not use the central control touch screen to play video games while the vehicle is driving.
Obviously, in NHTSA's view, even a co-driver playing a game can seriously distract the driver's attention and lead to safety accidents.
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20 years of transformation of infotainment systems
Think about how we interact with cars today and cars from 20 years ago. For example, a 2004 Honda CR-V, which didn't have a central touchscreen and navigation system, just a single-disc CD player with a radio function, and its air conditioning control was also manual, consisting of three turntables, you don't even need to take your eyes off the road to adjust.
But the situation is very different for today's cars, such as tesla we mentioned earlier, which integrates all the functional controls on the central control screen of the vehicle, and you need to use it to deal with everything about the car.
Of course, there are also not as "extreme" as Tesla, such as the Ford Kuga, which does not hide the air conditioning control function in the touch screen, but is equipped with knobs and physical buttons, but their position is installed very low, the buttons are also very small, it is not very convenient to use, and you still need to use the touch screen to operate the other functions of the vehicle and various menus.
A study by the University of Utah and the American Automobile Association Traffic Safety Foundation found that the current car's infotainment system is very demanding for drivers, and some functions may take more than 48 seconds to complete.
In addition, as early as 2018, the Canadian Traffic Injury Research Foundation also released a study that believed that 25% of fatal car accidents may be related to distracted driving.
If we combine these two findings, it is clear that the longer the operation time required for the function of the car system, the more likely it is to cause driver distraction and the higher the probability of driving accidents.
Contemporary cars are safer and less secure
Nowadays, cars are indeed safer in many ways.
The 2004 Honda CR-V did not have a Bluetooth connection, but for tesla Model 3, Ford Kuga and other current fuel vehicles and electric vehicles, they all allow owners to receive calls without touching the mobile phone, and even support mainstream social software such as weChat in the car.
And compared to the 2004 Honda CR-V, these new cars also have a comprehensive and rich range of active safety technologies, such as lane keeping, adaptive cruise, speed limit recognition and active braking.
However, as car safety experts worry, these new cars are rich in features, but you have to delve into several layers of menus to access some of them.
Some car companies are aware of this inconvenience and give drivers the permission to customize the car machine menu, making it easier to access some commonly used programs and functions, but it cannot be denied that the increasing number of new functions in the car system does bring us more opportunities to be distracted.
Of course, we are not completely negating the current in-vehicle system. In fact, when you drive the new Tesla Model 3 and Ford Kuga, you will indeed find that they are more suitable for the role of long-distance driving companion than the old CR-V, thanks to the fact that these new cars are equipped with a central touch screen that supports in-car navigation, connected music and other functions.
Sometimes, or most of the time, when we're parking or stuck in traffic, touch screens are really useful, but it's a hassle to operate them while on the go.
For automakers, installing bigger and bigger screens on the car's center console is also under tremendous pressure, as drivers accustomed to living with smartphones want to use the same technology in their cars.
BMW iX interior
Audi e-tron GT interior
So far, BMW has at least partly stuck to its point of view, integrating touchscreen technology with the iDrive rotary controller and reasonably concluding that both technologies have their own advantages and disadvantages.
However, Audi, which introduced the MMi rotary controller in the same period, gave up the physical knob, and its engineers had to admit in an interview that their car machine system was indeed attractive in the exhibition hall after being converted to a touchscreen-only operation, but it was not so easy to use on the road.
Waiting for a breakthrough in autonomous driving technology
It feels like we're stuck in a vacuum, and our cars are being fitted with more and more infotainment features, but there's no self-driving technology in the car that can match them to allow us to use them safely.
Last December, Mercedes-Benz successfully launched the first L3 level autonomous driving system with international certification. Compared with the L2 level driver assistance system, the biggest difference of the L3 level system is that it can truly free the driver's hands.
After the automatic driving is turned on, the system will completely take over the driving, and the car will complete the acceleration, deceleration, lane change, turning and other operations on its own during the driving process, without the supervision of the human driver.
However, it should be noted that the L3 level automatic driving system still has great restrictions when it is used, and in the case of Mercedes-Benz, its Drive Pilot can only be used when driving on highways with a speed of no more than 60km/h.
At the same time, many automakers that currently only have L2-level driving assistance functions, especially Tesla, are still sending some marketing messages to consumers that will cause cognitive errors, making drivers mistakenly believe that their cars already have L4 or even L5 level of autonomous driving, so these owners are less cautious about using other in-vehicle functions when driving.
As for the technologies that should help us prevent distractions before waiting for autonomous driving to arrive, such as voice control functions, from their system recognition rate to feedback speed to functional coverage, it is clear that there is still a way to go before they can truly bring a control experience that can completely ignore the touch screen.
Eventually, self-driving technology may evolve to the point where we can send and receive messages, watch movies, play games, and play TikTok anytime, anywhere in the car, but it still takes a long time to develop.
Until then, automakers need to think hard about how to help drivers stay focused, and at least so far, it's still a necessary job for us while driving. 【iDailycar】