Requiem for Blind Operation

I love old cars.

Why?

Because I can adjust the air conditioner's intensity and know the exact temperature without taking my eyes or attention off the road for even a second.

I can also tune the radio stations and switch between them without looking away.

Maybe this ability is becoming extinct, but I still think it's very important.

In a world where there are so many distractions in such a sensitive activity as driving, I believe the shift to touchscreens is a mistake.

I don't think I'm a conservative; I just know that, on one hand, we're being taught not to use our phone screens while driving, but then we're given a large screen that handles most of the car's common functions.

There's a certain paradox here. Of course, car manufacturers want to stay updated and create a clean space without protruding "ugly" buttons.

But does this impact our driving?

Let's take a look:

Tests comparing cars with touchscreens to those with traditional controls showed that drivers using touchscreens take much longer to complete tasks, leading to more time with their eyes off the road.

For instance, a study found that it took drivers over 20 seconds to complete tasks on touchscreens compared to less than 10 seconds with physical buttons.

There isn't an official statistic linking an increase in road accidents to the use of touchscreens in cars. However, if each task takes longer, it implies our attention is less on the road, suggesting we might respond slower or not at all in an emergency.

In road terms, especially in the Israeli reality, this is an eternity. A 10-second difference in response times in emergency situations can be critical.

Today, it's not about knowing how to write an SMS without looking, as we did with Nokia phones when they first came out. Our task environment has become much busier, but the basic tasks remain exactly the same. We want to listen to the radio or answer and hang up a phone call, adjust the air conditioner, and turn on the wipers when it rains.

With the talk of autonomous vehicles, touchscreens can be seen as logical. On the day when all we need to worry about is the car's temperature or the music we want to hear, and the machine drives for us, touchscreens will make sense in the driver's cabin. But we still have a long way to go, don't you think?