Re:Car touchscreens are cheap, not good
by scottyah on Monday July 06, 2026 @03:03PM
(#48809027)
You cannot push physical buttons on a dashboard without taking your eyes off the road, it's a myth. Fiddling with radio controls is the most cited reason for accidents before cell phones.
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You most certainly can. That doesn't mean people do it 100% of the time.
You're right- it was a generalization. I think the amount of actual dashboard-button-pressing without looking away is extremely low, probably 1 button. The rest might be usable a quick glance, but so is a touchscreen.
I suppose that's true. I was thinking of my car, which has a lot of buttons on the steering wheel itself. They're easy to use without looking, since you don't have to change your hand position, and I control music entirely with those.
I agree, wheel controls are my favorite!
That entirely depends on the layout and shape/size/feeling of each button. If they're sufficiently different I'd guess 3-5 buttons is reasonable.
> You cannot push physical buttons on a dashboard without taking your eyes off the road, it's a myth
You can't possibly make this argument in good faith. Obviously it is trivial to interact with physical buttons while blind, so it can always be done without taking eyes off the road.