Yes, those big touchscreens in cars are dangerous and buttons are coming back |
In recent years, the way drivers interact with cars has fundamentally changed. Physical buttons have gradually disappeared from dashboards as more functions have been transferred to touchscreens.
Touchscreens in vehicle dashboards date back to the 1980s. But modern cars consolidate functions into these systems far beyond what we’ve seen before, to the point where a car feels mostly like a computer.
This may create the impression of a modern, technologically advanced vehicle. However, scientific evidence increasingly points to touchscreens compromising our safety.
In fact, ANCAP Safety, the independent car safety assessment program for Australia and New Zealand, has announced that from 2026 it will ask car manufacturers to “bring back buttons” for important driver controls, including headlights and windscreen wipers. Similar moves are underway in Europe.
ANCAP Safety will explicitly assess how vehicle design supports safe driving, and not just how well occupants are protected in the event of a crash – which means calling time on touchscreens that control everything in your car.
Decades of road-safety research show human error plays a role in the vast majority of crashes. And the design of in-vehicle interfaces can contribute to how often drivers make safety errors.
Errors behind the wheel are often linked to driver distraction. But what exactly constitutes distraction, and how does it occur?
In human factors research, distraction is typically classified as visual, manual, cognitive, or a combination of these. A........