Honestly, non-tactile buttons on a car seems ridiculous. You HAVE to look away from the road to do anything. Tactile buttons let you feel around to do things if you need to. That change has made zero sense to me.

It's also scary just how many controls there are now, tactile or otherwise, that have little to do with safely driving the car and navigating efficiently to your destination. Until we have truly autonomous vehicles, all those distractions are accidents waiting to happen (or sometimes, sadly, not waiting).

Touch controls for anything a driver needs to manipulate while driving are obviously ridiculous, so there's not much else to say there. But given how dangerous using a phone while driving is under most circumstances, what on earth are phone-related controls doing taking up prime real estate on a steering wheel in so many modern vehicles, even if they're tactile? Either way, it's like the car makers said "OK, we get that using these features while driving is about as dangerous as driving while you're drunk, but the kind of person who will buy our premium vehicles is going to be grossly irresponsible anyway, so they might as well have an easy time doing it."

And then after distracting the driver's attention and giving them lots to look at other than what they actually need for driving, they act all surprised that the driver who was "required to be fully aware and able to take over control of the vehicle immediately at any time" was messing around with the infotainment system with lane keeping, cruise control and automatic distance keeping turned on instead of watching the road, and point to the legal small print when the inevitable tragedy happens because of course the driver was not actually able to take over immediately when something unexpected happened.

This whole issue makes my blood boil. It's like the worst example of prioritising flash and gimmicks at the expense of making something that actually works properly, and in a context where safety is a huge factor and people are literally dying unnecessarily every day. These kinds of idiocy should have been regulated out of existence the day after they were announced.

Especially with the shit microcontrollers they put into the toyota mid range cars and their lack of responsiveness. Really forces you to look at the screen when you fidget with it.

Those shit micros in the infotainment system are still running at least in the hundreds of MHz. PCs from 25 years ago with equivalent performance were responsive. It's poor software development practices that makes good enough hardware crawl at a snail's pace.

Using a cellphone while driving is illegal? Let's just make the whole car a cellphone! Brilliant!

It makes new wonder how these non-tactile buttons and entertainment systems are even legal to use while driving. And if you had to stop your car to adjust the radio then these touch screens would immediately disappear.

I swear I don't work for Mazda but their new cars actually have a feature that disables touch on the screen above 5km/h. You can still use the tactile buttons though.

It's actually not ideal because now the passenger can't use it either, but at least they've made an attempt to stop drivers interacting with the screen at high speeds.

Just seems strange that it's 2021 already and touchscreens are still considered acceptable in cars. https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/11/20800111/us-navy-uss-john...

Isn’t Mazda discontinuing use of touch screens?

I bought a Mazda CX-5 last year and in the dealership, one of the televisions was playing an endless loop of Mazda commercials, and one of the commercials was specifically about how all the important controls are on physical buttons / knobs / switches.

Mazda is clearly aware that they work better, but I'm sure customers who don't drive often or don't pay attention to the experience of driving simply assume that a larger touchscreen is better and somehow more modern.

I sometimes even turn the screen off completely, on long drives or at night; I only wish there was a dedicated button to do so.

The car is great too - it has dedicated buttons for pretty much everything else, including a dedicated, physical volume knob in the center armrest and track change buttons on the steering wheel, climate control, various driver assistance features, etc. It was all clearly designed with the driver in mind, and the touchscreen was an afterthought.

That is their plan as far as I know. And even before that, their interfaces have generally been pretty good about tactility. My '17 does have a touchscreen, but it is entirely optional and everything can be controlled using physical controls.

I drive a 2018 Mazda 3. The touch functionality is disabled while the car is moving, everything is done with a wheel and a few buttons. It works well but it's a pretty basic system (nav and audio that's it). I don't know if it could accommodate advanced features.

> I don't mind ABS and other "invisible" electronics as long as they are reliable which is not a given nowadays

These are pretty damned reliable, IMO, in absolute terms (before even giving credit for the fact than an automobile is pretty harsh environment for electronics with temperature and humidity swings, large voltage transients, poor grounds, mechanical shock/vibration, road salt, corrosion, etc). I've probably changed more power window regulators than ABS or EFI modules.

I've never had an EFI fail (knock on wood) but my main car right now has had a failed ABS for several years (too expensive to repair vs. value of the vehicle).

It's almost certainly a wheel sensor rather than the ABS module itself. They can be damaged during a brake job, etc.

or cheap, vs the cost of running someone down.

ABS does not significantly shorten stopping distances. It does provide improved steering control during brake applications that would otherwise exceed available traction, but I think it's extremely rare that ABS would be the difference between a pedestrian collision vs not. (They could just as easily choose a car that didn't have ABS as originally equipped and no one would say anything about the omission.)

> They could just as easily choose a car that didn't have ABS as originally equipped and no one would say anything about the omission.

That’s the kind of failure case I wish fancy electronics had. Component breaks = now you’re driving a lower trim-level. As opposed to $5000 touchscreen module dies and now you can’t use the car.

you do realise the point of things breaking is so that people would be coerced to make a new purchase...

Being able to control the vehicle during emergency braking would ostensibly allow you to steer around the obstacle or pedestrian prior to impact.

It does in skid conditions by detecting the slippage and releasing and reapplying the brake far faster than you could alone.

> So do I have to ride horses to get my privacy back now?

You say this in jest, but depending on your locale and transport needs, you could consider a motorcycle or bicycle. The interface is a bit like riding a horse, just more 21st century (obviously).

Modern bikes come with ABS and fuel injection, and tires these days are great. Motorcycles don't come with any of the annoying road-car nanny-state stuff. Riding a bike is cool too.

If I lived in the countryside (which I wouldn't mind) I would consider this, but otherwise I personally couldn't justify the risk. I forget where I read it, but the phrase "right of weight, not right of way" comes to mind. It's also why I love that my hometown allows riding bikes on sidewalks.

> It's also why I love that my hometown allows riding bikes on sidewalks.

This would be a dream.

I live in a reasonably deserted/seasonal neighbourhood, so it has a neat 2-lane divided avenue down the middle, but it is usually very empty (a car maybe every minute).

This doesn't mean I can ride anywhere but the very edge of the asphalt, almost tripping my pedals on the sidewalk rise (I forget the word in English), since drivers love to pick up some speed in the avenue and drive at frankly disrespectfully close distances, even though they could have almost entire lane of distance to a cyclist.

>> It's also why I love that my hometown allows riding bikes on sidewalks.

> This would be a dream.

Or the kind of urban nightmare where motorcycles (sorry, battery assisted bicycles) are rushing down sidewalks at 20 mph, barely missing baby carriages, dogs, and other humans.

Not here, because the sidewalks are not continuous or very well maintained, so such ill folk would not be able to rush at their desired maximum speed.

It is. Maybe you can take short trips somewhere close that allows it, or at least lets you feel a little safer?

> almost tripping my pedals on the sidewalk rise (I forget the word in English)

The curb?

That's the word, thank you!

> ... motorcycle or bicycle. The interface is a bit like riding a horse,

There is no truth to this: First, riding a horse is a _cooperative_ enterprise. You have to communicate with another living being and convince it to do what you want. It is not just a matter of pull one way to go in that direction. Second, the horse has a survival instinct. With good communication that instinct is lined up with your desires. A motorcycle, on the other hand, does not care whether it or you survive anything.

I am far from being a competent rider, but I'd rather be on a horse.

Anecdote:

The wife and I enjoyed a tourist horse ride. Because of my motorcycle past time I was assigned "the fast horse".

The enjoyable leisurely ride out only had a minor disagreement regards a path shortcut under a low hanging branch.

The ride back included a gallop in shallow lake waters.

Apoplectically incompetent I hung on for dear life trying to balance standing crouched in the stirrups while we proceeded to overtake everyone thanks to the horses own plan.

Thankfully the lead guide called forwards telling it to slow and it was someone else who fell off into the shallow water as we came to a stop.

I am far from being a competent rider - either horse or motorbike - but I'd rather be calling the shots!

To each their own. :-)

> but I'd rather be calling the shots!

With a horse, you get to communicate and convince. Also, stretching your legs and not squeezing would help.

> To each their own. :-)

Definitely.

I recall that fatalities per distance traveled of bikes is atrocious, like orders of magnitude higher than a car

Right on one order of magnitude where I come from (.au)

Which is still, while perhaps not as “atrocious” as plural “orders of magnitude”, without doubt something people considering riding bikes be fully aware of and prepared to accept the risk/consequences of.

I personally believe you can manage that risk. But I might be bullshitting myself because I want to ride because I enjoy it a lot. 32 years and approaching 1 million km on the bikes I own with my most serious injury being a dislocated shoulder is a fun/consequence ratio I’m happy enough to live with. (I suspect my decision there might be different if I had children or other similar responsibilities…)

Melbourne daily commuter rider (at the moment) here.

Risk management is a personal thing. If you are lax about it, expect lax outcomes - which explains a proportion of the 10x worse figure, but not all of it clearly. Some risks you can't mitigate much and humans with a metal shield around them are predictably better off.

Regards kids... I gave up my bike for $$$ to move cities. Upon first kid birth, I bought another bike off a guy who was giving it up because his wife was having a kid.

My friends joked that it was clear his wife loved him more than mine loved me. :-P

But I missed riding, my wife has no issue and the logistics justified the cost. I am still wanting to add ride cameras though.

Enjoy! Best wishes for safe riding.

Unfortunately, modern regulations forbid manufacturers from easily making a "dumb car". For example, backup cameras are required in new cars.

It's the same deal with avoiding wire insulation that rodents enjoy eating. Your only option is to buy a car from before 2000-ish.

I'd actually like to find a DIY subculture of taking old car frames and swapping in newer features a bit at a time. People do it with electric motors, but it still seems hard to get decent range/mileage/etc on a DIY EV project.

And buying a pre-2000 car involves giving up a lot of safety. That’s before regulators started looking at partial offset crashes, so older cars perform poorly if you clip a pole or oncoming vehicle with one of the headlamps.

You gain basically nothing in safety from the adoption of airbags in the early 90s to the improvements in roof strength and passenger cabins in the mid-00s (many models had their improvements in the early 00s because the regulations were known in advance). From there nothing changes until the proliferation of side curtain airbags.

Safety as a step function, basically.

>Unfortunately, modern regulations forbid manufacturers from easily making a "dumb car".

This is not true.

See https://globalcar.com/11-car-safety-systems-to-become-mandat... . I won't list them all, just the non-dumb features:

- Alcohol interlock installation facilitation and attention detection

- Emergency stop signal (aka autonomous braking)

- Intelligent speed assistance (aka adaptive cruise control)

- Lane keeping assist

- Reversing camera or detection system

All these systems require the car to be aware of its surroundings, i.e. require some "intelligence" in the control systems.

You’re right that those sort of rules require some kind of “smarts”.

None of them seem to require recording or log files.

It is true as of 2018: https://www.nhtsa.gov/equipment/driver-assistance-technologi...

Does NHTSA recommend rearview video systems? Yes. As of May 2018, NHTSA requires this lifesaving technology on all new vehicles. We recommend you look for RVSs that meet NHTSA’s performance specifications when shopping for a vehicle.

The actual requirement is a series of rear visibility tests that are done on a vehicle through the full range of seat adjustability.

A rear view camera allows any vehicle to meet the regulation regardless of vehicle styling and design. They are cheap, too.

But they are not strictly required. Your average 1980s sedan probably would meet the requirement as long as it had mirrors on the driver and passenger side.

Here is the regulation: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/49/571.111

You're not wrong but in practice they're all but required because the corner that fuel economy and cabin strength requirements box you into is a corner with really high belt-lines and really poor visibility. You couldn't build something that's the shape of a 1990s sedan today.

In the US, it's absolutely true as of May 2018. https://www.nhtsa.gov/equipment/driver-assistance-technologi...

A backup camera does not make a car smart.

Absolutely insane. I wonder how much cheaper and better a modern car could be if I didn't have to pay for legally-mandated safety features that A) are probably not utilitarian B) I don't even use.

For example, I am 100% certain that the benefit of having an airbag between my legs does not outweigh the monetary cost plus the comfort cost of not having an AC vent under the steering wheel.

I understand the sentiment. However, are you saying that you think AC between your legs is a worthwhile feature but airbags are not?

>are you saying that you think AC between your legs is a worthwhile feature but airbags are not?

Why should people not be allowed to make that choice?

Keep in mind that the only reason we have airbags is because Naderites did not believe that one could rely on people using seatbelts so there needed to be technology that did not require cooperation from humans.

Fast-forward a couple of decades. Oooops. Airbags have no use without seatbelts and provide only a small amount of additional protection in most cases (thanks to crumple zones and improvements in shaping the interior of the car).

Crumple zones themselves aren't really that big of a win either. They basically just buy time to set an airbag off unless you just so happen to crash into something approximately like what the crash tests use at whatever speed the relevant crash test is at. A little blow that speed it will be too stiff to do much. A little above that speed the car will blow right through it like it's not even there.

The real benefit is in rigid passenger cabins that keep tires and engines out of the occupants legs.

IMO side curtain airbags are a far better safety improvement than frontal airbags because the safety technology in the sideways direction and space for dissipating force is lacking so something needs to pick up the slack.

Well, safety features also benefit the people who ride in your car with you, and those people weren't necessarily involved in your purchasing decision.

There's a happy medium somewhere. In an ideal world, we would regulate what is really important and ignore what isn't, but we're still figuring things out.

Personally, I like the idea of universal sunsets to deal with the difficulty of repealing old regulations. Codes could be reviewed on an N-year basis, with old rules requiring a cost/benefit analysis and 'yes' vote to renew. But in practice, those kinds of processes seem to end up with people rubber-stamping "last year++" revisions, like with the USA's defense re-authorization acts.

> Why should people not be allowed to make that choice?

Because in practice people don't make that choice. Manufacturers do.

Read up on de-gloving. Then remember to keep your hands away from the top of the wheel.

>So do I have to ride horses to get my privacy back now?

Yes, but only so long as you don't take your cellphone with you.

Reminds me of a Rubberbandits classic.