"New Euro NCAP tests due in 2026 will encourage manufacturers to use separate, physical controls for basic functions in an intuitive manner, limiting eyes-off-road time and therefore promoting safer driving."
Actually, no, no official EU organization nor any council mandates that. It's Euro NCAP, an independent organization, who decided they'll include tactile control in their car safety evaluation. It is literally explained in that article.
It will still make a difference, but this is not something EU did.
A lot of times safety innovations are first introduced on NCAP ratings, then the ETSC carefully evaluates adoption and will then advocate for those requirements to become legally binding regulations.
A technical standard will then typically be designed at the UNECE, Then the European Commission will propose it to be discussed and voted both by the EU Parliament and the European Council.
It is not like the NCAP is just the EU version of the US "Consumer Reports". While not a part of the EU, it is a non-profit thoroughly embedded into the development of automotive safety standards in the EU.
To add insult to injury, despite the fact that the speed up and speed down buttons are actual physical buttons, they are so aggressively denounced that there’s a loop: press button, wait, press, read screen to see if you’re making progress, press, etc.
Anyway, the point is that, while physical buttons in predictable locations can make it possible to operate something without looking, it still needs a good design and implementation.
I rent A LOT of cars for work and it’s clear that some makes know what the fuck they are doing(Volvo, Toyota) while others don’t.
Gotta be kidding me.
Surely voice commands can replace buttons and touch interfaces in 2026!
This is the advantage over a touchscreen - you can't learn those by feel.
Yeah, there's, like, I don't know, 25 buttons if you count the stalks? That's a lot I guess, but I wouldn't want to turn down my music or skip the track by looking over at a touch screen and guessing.
Staying continuously visually connected with all environment simplifies driving and definitely improves safety. Also thanx to that heads up display I didn't get a single speeding fine while by default driving at the very limit of allowed speed, including our radar-infested towns and highways.
2010-level of tech of bmw f11 is enough for me, the only real improvement would be full unsupervised self driving which isn't coming anytime soon.
Buttons on the wheel is the same. You simply learn their place and feel.
I don't like music while driving, so I know by feel how to mute or turn media/radio off in every car my family has.
My wife can't drive without music, so, she knows all the other media controls I don't care about by muscle memory.
IIHS doesn’t have any mandate power over manufacturers (they are not a regulatory body) but they do align with insurance company interests, whose goals are to pay out less for damages from vehicle incidents, and therefore IIHS logically would theoretically be focused on actuarial data-driven analysis. If you have specific examples of where this has not been the case, I’d love to learn more.
Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) with Pedestrian Detection: IIHS rates vehicles on forward collision avoidance, including pedestrian scenarios, but systems often underperform in real-world conditions like nighttime or with larger vehicles (e.g., trucks or motorcycles). Studies show virtually no crash reduction at night, and features can create false alerts, weather-related failures, or a false sense of security, potentially dulling driver awareness without clear evidence of broad effectiveness at higher speeds.
Roof Strength Test: Vehicles must withstand a force equivalent to a certain multiple of their weight (e.g., 4x for a "good" rating) to simulate rollover protection. Critics, including automotive industry analyses, argue there's no statistically reliable evidence that increasing roof strength beyond basic levels (e.g., from 2.5 to 3.5 strength-to-weight ratio) reduces injury risk, with claims relying on unsupported extrapolations from low-strength data and anomalous results.
Updated Side Impact Test (Introduced 2021): This tougher test uses a heavier, faster-moving barrier (4,200 lbs at 37 mph) to mimic modern SUV strikes. It's criticized for disadvantaging smaller vehicles unfairly, incorporating misleading variables (e.g., tire grip affecting results), and prioritizing structural deformation over occupant outcomes, potentially leading to "poor" ratings despite good dummy readings. Detractors view it as more marketing-driven than reflective of common real-world crashes, with little evidence that the changes proportionally save lives beyond the original test.