Maybe I don't switch back and forth between stuff while I'm driving as much as you do? I set everything up before I need to focus on the road, and then I just drive. If I need to change to a different playlist, or switch from music to the news, I pull over, make the switch, then start driving again.

If CarPlay makes it more tempting or productive for me to do non-driving things while I am driving, then it is not a good driving UX.

If you have a smartphone, it can be tempting or "productive" (the air quotes are probably reasonable!) to do non-driving things while you're driving, if you're the sort of person who's tempted to do that when you have a smartphone available. I think this is largely orthogonal to whether or not you have CarPlay.

I'm guilty of being that sort of person occasionally. I've found that having CarPlay in my new car reduces the temptation to do "non-driving things," because the things that I do that are related to driving -- navigation apps, streaming music, and for me, playing podcasts -- become easier to do with CarPlay's UX than with just using the phone in a holder like I did in my last car. The screen in my car is much bigger, the touch targets are bigger, the UI is simplified, the design encourages me to use voice input. (In your example of changing to a different playlist, I can just press the Siri button -- which perhaps amusingly in this discussion, is a physical button on my Insight's steering wheel! -- and say "Play [name of playlist].")

>If I need to change to a different playlist, or switch from music to the news, I pull over, make the switch, then start driving again.

I'm pretty sure that puts you somewhere near the top 0.0000001% of cautious drivers.

It's generally illegal to pull over on an interstate highway unless you have a true emergency. Pulling over in traffic, and then accelerating and merging again (in the absence of an actual acceleration lane as with on/off ramps) is dangerous.

Yes. In this case, if changing my audio source right at that time is that important, I'll get off on an exit. But I don't think that has ever happened to me.

Once you get used to Waze on the big screen, you'd never want anything else.