In one car I've driven, whenever you turn it on, a pop-up appears that says (paraphrasing): "Taking your eyes off the road to interact with this screen can cause an accident. Press OK to continue."
Irony...
Irony...
My car's crash safety rating was significantly dinged because lower trim lines don't have low beams that follow the steering.
I wish they'd deduct a star for "there is a circumstance in which the car is on, and the main console is displaying a non-time-critical-popup, or refusing to accept input".
On a related note, why do car manufacturers make you come to a complete stop on the freeway so the person in the passenger seat can type an address into the navigation system?
I have to wonder whether adding friction to the UX in the name of safety can have the complete opposite effect. Sure, drivers might do something dumb like trying to pair a Bluetooth device while they're driving, but if the car makes this impossible, isn't it increasing the amount of time the driver is distracted?
I have GPS in my car, but I use an external one because the internal one is so annoying this way - the first time I got lost because my passenger could not interact with the GPS was also the last time I used it.
The GP is taking the nanny-ware as a given, and narrowly asking why the passenger isn't allowed to bypass it.
I'm pointing out that cars don't have a is_occupied_by_human(), just car_seat_weight() and seat_belt_in_use(). That it works this way isn't obvious to anyone who hasn't looked into it.
Um, except they actually do, and its used to control safety-related equipment (passenger=side airbag), safety notifications (passenger airbag and seatbelt lights), and alarms (passenger seatbelt not in use when seat occupied alarm).
It may not be wired into the infotainment system, though.
"I'm a good multitasker! I can do this perfectly safely! Why shouldn't I? Cops do it all the time!"
Every time I've seen this sorta subject come up on car-related forums there's a non-negligible amount of people who carry an opinion like that.
Putting a nanny on a car is just stupid. Especially because, surprise, surprise, passengers actually do sometimes ride in cars!
This is simply not the job of the car.
I've seen someone on this site call for the abolition of drunk driving laws, arguing that the punishable act should be driving recklessly rather than the factors that led to the reckless driving; because of course, if you think you can drive drunk safely, then why shouldn't you be allowed to (/s)?
Sure if you can demonstrate that you can do X activity safely it seems reasonable to allow you to do so. However, that hasn't been demonstrated.
E.g. sleeping off your drunkenness while sitting in the front seat with the keys within reach. Starting the car to run the heater or AC might get you additional punishment.
It's bizarre - it ought to occur to such people that ordinary folks cannot function with six or eight beers in the head, and that they ought to seek treatment for their condition but it just doesn't. No tolerance for alcohol behind the wheel.
Is there some flaw in the argument? Typically it's the reckless driving which would get you caught anyway. Which is why the "I'm fine" crowd still does it despite it being illegal -- they think they're not going to do anything that will get them pulled over.
The advantage of that proposal isn't that the drunks get away with it. If they're weaving in and out of lanes or driving 35 on the highway they're still getting cited.
It's that the person doing the exact same thing because they're excessively tired or otherwise incapacitated gets the same citation even if they can blow in the machine and get a zero.
It can cause someone else to hit you.
And the example was driving under the minimum speed.
(Almost every modern car knows when there is a passenger in the front passenger seat — they could feed this knowledge to the infotainment system.)
They're supposed to blank the video out when the car is moving (going audio-only), but your dealer will pretty much by default pull the one sense wire on the back of the unit that causes it to do that so you can watch TV when driving, since that's what everyone wants.
Now here comes the interesting part - despite having the sense wire pulled so that it can play video while in motion, it will still disable the settings menu when the car is moving. So there must be a second sense wire somewhere in the wiring harness that it's using for the "real" safety feature, while leaving a sacrificial sense wire for the feature everyone will disable anyway. Very bizarre.
"Our infotainment system is a danger for anyone to use because of the terrible design. Please press "I agree" to confirm it is all your fault and responsibility somehow." Mercifully but even more ridiculous, it just goes away without being pressed when you start driving.
Some don't, I'm afraid to say.
"If you ignore this automatic popup warning in order to focus on driving, the screen will continue to display the message indefinitely at maximum brightness to distract or blind you for your entire trip until you take your attention away from the road to turn it off."
What happens if you try to make an http call from the dialog?
However, that doesn’t change the fact that the warning label “CAUTION: Contents hot” on a paper cup is indeed pretty useless and likely exists as a result of this lawsuit — not because it will actually keep anyone from burning themselves (for that goal, you’d want it to say some variant of “our coffee is much hotter than what you make at home”), but because a bunch of lawyers thought it would make for an easier defense next time.
That’s the root cause right there.