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Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

What's the proper control to use for interacting with a navigation aid in the UK? Or are you saying that UK law forbids in-car maps?

These arguments always end up in this kind of hyper-specific realm where they seem to apply only to Tesla's particular design choices. But, in car maps are everywhere now (and, yes, Tesla's implementation is by far the best), and the natural way you use them is with touch. They absolutely make finding your way around easier and safer.

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> What's the proper control to use for interacting with a navigation

1. Voice control

2. Pull over

Back in the day I did a long cross country trip with a Garmin 60CSx hiking GPS, held in my right hand, which I was also shifting with. I didn't use it for turn by turn navigation (not a fan, especially for road trips), but rather a detailed map with a live "you are here" indicator. To look at it, I held the unit halfway up and glanced down when I could naturally spare the attention. For input, I pushed the buttons without looking, since I could predict the unit's states (push button X to zoom out, push button Y 3 times to get from map screen to statistics screen, etc). It even had text input, in the form you'd probably grimace at (alphabetically-ordered grid of letters, move using arrow buttons, select using enter button), which I believe I did while driving with no problem (it took quite a while to enter anything, of course). Due to the predictable input states and physical buttons that I never had to consciously locate (same position in my hand), it never felt like it affected my OODA loop or otherwise stole my attention.

FWIW, while safe, that would probably be illegal in many states you pass through due to hands-free device laws.

That is probably true these days, unfortunately. The held-in-hand aspect was key to the device being easy to use safely. If the GPS had been mounted to the dash/vent instead (per current customs), then each button press would have taken more effort to visually register where the button was and verify that I was hitting it, similar to a touchscreen. Also, I suspect focusing on a more vertical screen would have required my eyes adjusting to cancel the ambient backlight, greatly slowly my ability to change focus.

I also did most of the driving barefoot, which it turns out actually is not actually illegal as many urban legends would have you believe. That too gave me much better control modulating the clutch, handy for things like rough dirt roads.

My Audi has a knob which I can rotate in order to navigate through the menus without taking my eyes off the street. It also has a touch screen, but I only use it when standing still.

Mazda has something similar. I realized that "do __ without taking your eyes off the road" isn't really true, for the same reason that it's hard to read your phone and listen to someone at the same time. Most of the time you can strike a balance, but every once and a while your mind will completely blank and take a few moments to realize you stopped processing what you were hearing. Not a risk worth taking while driving.

I try to avoid using the knob while in motion as well.

There's also a difference between taking your eyes off the road momentarily to look at a simple predictable display in a fixed location, like a light or a needle or a fixed text display, and taking your eyes off the road indefinitely to look at a screen that displays something unpredictable, complex and arbitrary as part of an interactive session, usually with animations.

Do you refuse to ride in Ubers, or avoid Amazon delivery vehicles? I have to admit that the level of tech-denial in this thread seems to be getting out of hand. Everyone uses in-vehicles maps. Everyone deploys them on touch screens. They're pervasive and everywhere, and none of the arguments change when you bolt them to the dash.

Why is "Tesla" being held to a different standard than UPS/FedEx/Amazon/Uber/Doordash/etc...?

I would say because Tesla is doing something similar to this (well, not the ditching, but the bad part that comes before the eventual ditching) and basically what the study found:

    Navy ditches touchscreens for knobs and dials after fatal crash

https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/11/navy-ditches-touchscreens-...

Things did get diverted on a maps drove tangent but that usually on our pose to enable the same argument you're making now.

The argument started by asking why windshield wipers, environment controls or basic radio functions need to be buried in a touch screen.

Also most vehicles limit what's allowed in navigation screens while the vehicle is moving. Which is annoying when it prevents a passenger get from using it but sensible when there is a single driver.

Did you commented under wrong comment? I can't see how it fits here, it seems to be response to something that was not said.

3. co-driver or other passenger

The only navigation thing I can do that feels safe while driving is “Hey Siri, take me to XYX.” Any non-verbal way to interact will take your eyes and hands away from driving far too much.

Which is great when it works but possibly the most irritating thing in the world when it doesn't.

No matter what I tried recently, I couldn't get Siri to provide directions to Kohl's. It simply couldn't understand what I was asking for.

Many places forbid driving while distracted, and this often applies regardless of the source of distraction. Just because something is connected to the vehicle doesn’t mean that any use of that equipment is necessary legal.

Carplay (and presumably Android Auto, although I only have experience with Carplay) have the best car maps, and they are unavailable in a Tesla.

That's... no, I think that's just objectively wrong. Have you actually used all these systems? Display latency in the device-remote schemes is really pretty awful, where the Tesla screen scrolls like butter. Obviously no one is an expert on all these things, but I watch friends' vehicles and the occasional rental, and it's really not close.

I went quickly to youtube to check, and pulled up this comparatively recent Mach-E video showing carplay. It's... janky and clumsy. Buttons take 300ms+ to actuate. See the sequence starting around 3:15. No wonder it feels unsafe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ongr-sptxto

Now watch this one, which is actually two years old (not showing the current UI, and running on what is now one-generation-old MCU hardware):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGKOWyFzDBs

There are likely better examples, these are just ones that popped up first for me. But yeah, that's the state of in-car navigation UIs. And Tesla is absolutely the best.

Perhaps they are on wifi or Bluetooth? My civic 2016 with CarPlay plugged in is absolutely perfect and not slower than interacting with my phone.

You touch on one of the key problems here. "Not showing the current UI". Allowing cars to follow the same ui refresh cycle as cell phones undermines the predictability of operating the vehicle.

There has to be a balance between the "always new" and "never updated" approaches here.

I'd say a car's core ui, everything from how to wipers work, to brake pedal sensitivity(changed in a few tesla updates?!), should require a manual update, a discussion with a car tech, and a sign off by the customer.

None of this stuff should ever, ever change in an update, without blaring, in your face, clear walkthroughs on the change.

And none of them should be forced, or preclude other updates. EG, by no means, should the control system of a car you paid tens of thousands for, suddenly change post sale.

Consumers first, safety first, cost savings and "cool factor" complete last.

> They absolutely make finding your way around [...] safer

How so? Not disputing, just curious what you mean.

Getting lost and staring at a map is vaguely dangerous. Having a map that gets you a clear answer faster is safer. This really doesn't seem controversial to me, it only seems so in this thread because "Tesla".

If you frame it in other ways, it seems more obvious. Is anyone demanding that FedEx drivers or Doordashers use paper maps? Should your Uber driver pull over every time the route changes?

I feel like the paper map comparison is a red herring. Most people who are in favour of the UK’s rule against ‘interacting with a device while driving’ would probably also say you should pull over before messing with a paper map too; it’s probably just much harder to legislate for that (or maybe less necessary because people do that so rarely). No one is arguing that using a paper map while driving is safer.

Not that I necessarily support the legislation, I lean pretty libertarian, I just don’t take your argument that it’s ‘obviously’ safer to let people use phones in their cars because otherwise they’ll use paper maps. That’s just not what happens. What actually happens is either they interact with their phone more briefly and surreptitiously to avoid detection by police, or they just pull over and interact with their phone at the side of the road before getting going again. Either way I suspect the law has the desired effect of reducing the amount people are distracted while driving.

I agree that GPS makes finding where you are easier but it's a fallacy to pretend maps are hard to use. Anyone with an IQ above room temperature should be able to locate themselves on a map. It's only when you become so oblivious to your surroundings because you only know how ot listen to the GPS that this seems difficult...

It can take quite a lot of time to figure that out. If you see Street name and number, sure, with index you will find it. But slowly.

And when you don't see no named sign, it takes a lot more time to find the place on map.

Locating yourself on a map while stationary and locating yourself on a map while operating a 3 ton vehicle at speed and looking for a particular turn are quite different things.

Phone holder.

The law only applies to using a device held in your hand while driving.

You're saying the law allows a touch screen to be used if it's secured with a "holder" but not if it's.... bolted to the console at the factory?

Why would that be banned? The wording talks about holding the device in the hand. I'm only talking about the recent UK phone law. Previously you could hand hold a phone as long as you weren't using it as a phone. It's now broader in terms of what the devices are, but still only applies to holding something in the hand.

Yes the law allows you to use navigation in your phone.

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