>If that's the standard, then almost everything becomes safety critical.

Almost everything in a cars front panel and dashboard can be. I've read somewhere that people have been killed even because of something as quaint as the wrong placement of car ashtray.

One time I pulled up at the red light behind a Tesla while I was on a bicycle. Straight through the rear window I could see the driver and front passenger being distracted by the massive flat touch screen. The traffic light turned green, and had I been beside the Tesla, I would have beaten it across the intersection despite all that electric motor tech in the car.

Anyway this little illustrated anecdote of mine aside, driver distraction is a genuine issue - even for drivers at red lights. The number of times I've seen this type of behaviour transcend into moving off while remaining distracted (whether that's heads down visually or just mentally) is too boringly frequent to detail. Sometimes the distracted drivers even creep forward unconsciously while traffic is flowing across them. Emergency vehicles can't get through, drivers end up splitting their attention, pressure mounts once proper movement starts again, and all the while they don't realise they don't have full attention in a changing environment.

It's almost like a hypoxia.

Tom Scott did a pretty good video on this: https://youtu.be/_-aDHxoblr4

I've missed the light turning green while just looking out the window (our car has no screen). As long as people are only distracted while waiting at a light I wouldn't worry too much.

Except they're not only distracted while looking at their screen when stopped. The distraction continues after they start rolling again - one thing directly leads to another here.

It is my understanding that two major reasons for various ugly UI and unintuitive UX in automotive infotainment systems are patents and safety certifications.