Digital car screens: handy or hazardous?
WHEN it comes to dashboard displays that are more like smart phones, two things are clear: Customers want them, and automakers are intent on supplying them. But are they really a good idea?
Car companies answer with an emphatic yes. They say oversized dashboard displays that behave like smart phones will boost revenue and attract buyers. And they also insist the new screens will make driving less dangerous, because of well-integrated voice controls and large touch screens that will keep drivers from fumbling with more dangerous mobile phones.
But the increasingly elaborate screens have also sparked a broad debate about how much technology is appropriate in a car.
“You can’t be looking at a screen and be looking at the road at the same time,” said David Strayer, a professor of cognition and neural science at the University of Utah. “The screens are enabling activities that take your eyes off the road for longer than most safety advocates would say is safe.”
But for automakers and their customers, the souped-up screens are proving irresistible. In an Audi A3, for example, drivers who sync their phones with their cars can check for mentions of themselves on Twitter and see those tweets on their dashboards - although not their full Twitter streams. They can upload photos taken on smart phones and request mapping to the place the photo was taken. Text messages pop up on the dashboard, in addition to being read out loud.
Up to now, dashboard technology hasn’t factored highly into most car buying decisions, but carmakers expect it to become increasingly important over the next three to five years.
A recent study by market research company JD Power found that about 15 percent of consumers rule out buying a car if it lacks the latest technology, compared with just 4 percent a year ago.
Currently, dashboard displays are only lightly regulated. Many US states forbid the airing of non-navigational videos by drivers while cars are in motion, except for safety video systems designed to help with reversing and other tasks. But the auto industry has issued voluntary guidelines of its own. For example, the industry guidelines say that drivers should be able to complete tasks on the displays in a series of single glances that generally take no more than two seconds each, for a total of 20 seconds.
But some critics find even that standard too lax.
“It should be set up so people can do it in just four glances,” says Henry Jasny, vice president of the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, a Washington, D.C.-based group funded by insurers and others. His group has asked for American government guidelines to become law, figuring that even imperfect mandatory rules would be better than no requirements, and that during the rulemaking process, the organisation can fight for more
Elaborate screens spark debate on how much tech is appropriate in a car
stringent regulation.
Auto manufacturers are incorporating popular smartphone features into displays in different ways. Some, such as Honda, are simply making their displays compatible with Android and iOS, the smartphone software from Google and Apple, so drivers can see a bare-bones version of their phone on the screen.
Other companies, including Tesla, are creating elaborate systems that don’t rely on syncing with phones, but replicate many of the things consumers might use their phones to do, such as checking for nearby restaurants.
Making the in-dash displays as responsive as possible with minimal glances away from the road is a major goal, says Danny Shapiro from Nvidia, a company that makes hardware and software for displays featured in Audis and Teslas.
“What we’re doing is developing graphics that are intuitive, so you can gesture or swipe or zoom,” he said. “Something that responds like that, and is big, is much safer than a smartphone.”
- Reuters