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European crash tester says carmakers must bring back physical controls
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2024
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Exactly. Touchscreen can be a positive because you get dynamic and contextual menus, and the sort of rich user interface that people expect from modern devices.
But for the most common functions, nothing beats the tactile muscle memory of physical controls that are always immediately present when you need them, and can use with your eyes still on the road.
So the best is to have both.
I would argue that maybe with the exception of GPS or music -- and that's a very dubious "maybe" -- anything complicated enough to need dynamic and contextual menus doesn't belong in a car in the first place.
There are lots of functions that can benefit, just not ones you want to do while in motion.
I like touchscreen - I just don't like it at the expense of losing physical controls for the things that matter.
The first three are covered under "GPS or music."
I concede your point on the fourth and fifth. I did consider mentioning that sort of thing, but I was thinking more of reading trouble codes without needing to plug a computer into the OBD2 port as a convenience and figured it was too niche.
As for the sixth, I'd suggest that a clock nowadays ought to set itself via GPS, NTP, or radio signal; kmh/mph should be a non-issue because the speedometer should be analog and have tick marks for both, I'm not sure lane keep warnings need to be configurable, etc.
Of course lane keep warnings need to be configurable. Personally, I disable most of them in any vehicle I drive.
They give me notification fatigue and pull my attention more often to misinterpreted information than to an an issue that requires my attention. For instance, in construction zones where lines shift or there is a hazard on the shoulder so I hug the center line more. Or even worse, just because the computer lost track of the lanes for a bit.
Of modern driver aids, the only one I am a big fan of (when done well) is adaptive cruise control. The Subarus I've driven have been smooth in handling cars pulling in front of my when on cruise, but the last Honda I drove was very harsh in using regenerative braking.
I'm the kind of guy that doesn't want so much as an automatic transmission, let alone any fancy electronic nannies, but I admit I'd love to have adaptive cruise control too.