Smart Cars: Too Distracting? 180
Taco Cowboy writes "The vehicles we drive are getting smarter and smarter, as more and more gadgets are being crammed into them. But as those devices creep into the driving experience, they offer the driver an increasing number of displays to monitor. Thus, drivers are more distracted than ever. At the recent 'Connected Car Expo,' which was held in Los Angeles, panelists discussed how these smart car features can impair driving ability. For example, researchers led by Bruce Mehler at MIT revealed that drivers using voice command interfaces to control in-car navigation systems or USB-connected music devices can end up spending longer with their eyes off the road than those using conventional systems. You'd think being able to operate it by voice alone would be beneficial compared to older radio systems. (Tuning an older radio was used as a baseline task in these tests.) But according to Mehler, problems arise when the system needs clarification of what the driver wants, which often happens while they're trying to feed an address into a navigation system."
Better you look the road (Score:4, Interesting)
I dreamed of a custom computer system for my car. After just installing the video screen and audio system, I realized exactly that: you either drive or you manipulate the gadgetry. Let's put the intelligence where it belongs in a car: under the hood. Or go for a self driving car Google style.
Re:Better you look the road (Score:5, Funny)
Self driving car like Google's?
No. See, when I was testing one, it kept taking me to places where it thought I would be interested in - places that paid Google for ads.
So, instead to my destination, the Google car took me to McDonald's, then to Penny's and lastly to HomeDepot for their big sale.
The really scary part was when it got on the Interstate to take me to Amazon because they have some online Christmas thing going on. That would have been a long drive since I'm on the East Coast.
There were also these black SUVs that always seemed to know where I was going, too.
Re:Better you look the road (Score:5, Funny)
Regards,
Automotive Engineering Team
Google Inc.
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Re:Better you look the road (Score:4, Insightful)
Self driving car like Google's?
No. See, when I was testing one, it kept taking me to places where it thought I would be interested in - places that paid Google for ads.
So, instead to my destination, the Google car took me to McDonald's, then to Penny's and lastly to HomeDepot for their big sale.
That sounds a lot like my experience of the tuk-tuks in Bangkok.
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For now, I don't live in a place where they use plate readers, so I feel fairly comfortable I'm not being tracked by that, unless I'm doing something wrong while driving...much like it had in the past.
I would posit that we need to regulate the use of plate readers. If they are used, then data should be purged at least daily.
Re:Why do people accept this false premise (Score:2)
A failed education system.
When politicians/media/social activists team up to constantly cry that the most expensive (and under performing) system just needs more money, then more money, then more money (the only solution), what hope is there?
After all, why replace that Edsel when what you really need to do is pay the driver more?
What is that you say?
You are stuck in a ditch and the wheels are flat?
Clearly you are not paying your driver enough, think of the children!
Re:Better you look the road (Score:4, Insightful)
I dream of a truly smart car that prevents the drivers from doing stupid shit while driving, like making that left turn in front of me while I'm riding my motorcycle.
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As a fellow rider, plusfuckityplus.
Out revenue the page view scale? (Score:2)
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Or go for a self driving car Google style.
You mean a self driving car that leaves a trail of bread crumbs for the NSA and stops at every drive-through on the way home?
Re:Better you look the road (Score:5, Insightful)
Thing is, it doesn't take an enormous amount of intelligence to drive. Otherwise we'd have PhD grads driving trucks.
Your PhD grad probably couldn't drive a truck.
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Your PhD grad probably couldn't drive a truck.
Your average truck driver would also be unable to drive a truck, if not being taught how to.
Given the same level of truck driving education, i daresay the PhD grad would likely do better, because of more likeliness that he better understands driving physics.
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Except we've all seen evidence of PhDs having an awesome theoretical grasp of something, and absolutely zero practical grasp of something.
I'm betting you can find people who can write you the equations, but not actually perform the task because they don't have the coordination or motor skills.
I'm not convinced what you say is true, because I've
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I have five friends with PhDs, and all of them have had hands-on experience with equipment in getting their doctorates.
You're dreaming if you think that smart people are inept at interacting with the physical world in any wa
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And, I see you fail at reading the entire comment:
I've known many PhD holders who can do all sorts of cool things. But I've also know my fair share who were effectively idiots outside of the realm of the theoretical.
And, no, I wasn't kidding about the one who couldn't successfully
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Do I believe that understanding the physics of how to drive a truck corresponds to actually being able to do so? Not at all.
First of all, the 'physics of how to drive a truck' aren't the same as 'truck driving physics'. And someone understanding the latter is damn sure able to better, and especially more safely, drive his truck.
Seconds, I'm selling those nice bridges. It's a real bargain. Interested?
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You'll note that I didn't. The poster I was replying to was specifically mentioning MIT -- and since MIT tends to be a place where they actually build things, I consider them not really representative.
But my general experience with people with PhDs is that, a fair fraction of them are bordering on being idiots when it comes to day to day things. Several of them I would have to assume were complete
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"Real life" skills > formal education in nearly all but the most rarified environments.
The thing is, in the modern world those rare situations and environments are the ones that actually matter. A hundred years ago your ability to feed your family, maintain your home, etc. were difficult things that took significant effort. Today these tasks can be accomplished by almost anyone. And even if you cannot do some of these tasks yourself, these abilities are so common that you can pay for them to be done on the cheap.
Your usefulness in the modern world is primarily determined by how many rare abil
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PhDs having an awesome theoretical grasp of something, and absolutely zero practical grasp of something.
It probably makes you feel better to think this, I get it. Much like people who like to believe Einstein failed his math classes in school.
I'm betting you can find people who can write you the equations, but not actually perform the task because they don't have the coordination or motor skills.
You can find disabled people basically everywhere.
I'm not convinced what you say is true, because I've seen a fair few people with a PhD.
FTFY
Because, in some cases, the more you understand the underlying physics, the less you've ever done anything involving them and live in your own little bubble.
Did you learn all this from The Big Bang Theory?
My guess, take 10 high school students who enrolled in shop, and 10 PhD grads, give them each a month of training -- and you'll find a bias towards the high school students being pretty good, and the PhD grads being terrifying. I'm not saying ALL PhD grads, but I'm saying enough to be statistically significant.
Wow. Just.. Wow.
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Given the same level of truck driving education, i daresay the PhD grad would likely do better, because of more likeliness that he better understands driving physics.
Like a real-life Sheldon Cooper, huh?
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And the parent specifically said
Given the same level of truck driving education
In this case, I wo
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I think even PhDs have some desire to survive, and if you're, say, into physics, it probably becomes hard to ignore the fact that you're steering some 30 MJ of kinetic energy around (48t truck at cruising speed (90 km/h))
I guess that provides
Your average truck driver might have literally no idea about t
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I don't know where you are from, but judging by the spelling you use for "behaviour" it's not the US, so I can't speak for your particular location.
I'm from Germany. Our truck drivers aren't even considered particularly insane in global comparison, I suppose. Yet you often see them tailgating, minute-long overtaking because the difference in velocity is just so small, going leftmost lane, and so on. Basically the only thing a truck can /not/ do anymore is speeding, since they are all required to have speed limiters.
While I have seen truck drivers do some questionable things on occasion, most wrecks I've seen involved some idiotic driver in a car.
That's most likely because cars outnumber trucks by far
People in cars seem to thing they can weave in and out of truck traffic and that the truck behind them can stop just as fast as they can. Obviously it doesn't work that way.
Well your place might differ (though unlikely) but over here every other track i
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Thing is, it doesn't take an enormous amount of intelligence to drive.
Well, that explains the abysmally low accident rate...
Oh, wait.
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He didn't say drive *well*.
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Thing is, it doesn't take an enormous amount of intelligence to drive.
Well, that explains the abysmally low accident rate...
Oh, wait.
Driver distraction is the number one cause of accidents. In your experience, would you positively or negatively correlate intelligence and distractability?
Flippant, joking question aside, it turns out that IQ actually does correlate with lower accident rates [nih.gov] at a national level. It seems that the social conditions that promote greater intelligence in the populace (higher standard of living, income equality, a more polite society, greater individual liberty) are good for better driving.
On an individual lev
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Driving does not require the same type of "intelligence" as desk work does... people with things like non-verbal learning disorders can have a PhD in physics and describe the physics of driving in exhaustive details but still be lost causes when you put them behind the wheel because they lack the spatial awareness to put the theory in practice while other people have no clue how the physics work... they simply look where they want to go, follow safe driving common sense and safely get there.
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Not really, no. There are, however, many people of average intelligence who like to believe that.
Buttons vs Touch screens (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Buttons vs Touch screens (Score:5, Insightful)
user interfaces have gotton very shitty since a lot of it is outsourced and foreign designers have a 'grid' mentality (to save cost as the ONLY thing they care about).
look at most guis, also. grids of buttons. they don't often stray from a matrix style of rows and columns. blech! there's no navigation ability (to find the button you want, quickly) when its all just anonymous style rows and cols.
I always vary my gui designs and try to make each screen very unique and easy to quickly ID.
when I build hardware, I vary the layout and use diff size and shape buttons and the more important ones are bigger and never near the dangerous ones (how many times have you seen a quit button next to a very important button, with a small mouse slip its easy to make a BIG mistake).
gui layout is an art form but we give it to 'mechanical' style people (ie, robot thinking) and for manuf costs, we mostly go with grid layouts; which is really working against us, for human factors usability.
finally, programmers won't commit to a set of features and they are also lazy. look at android. so many apps keep changing their layout. they dont' CARE if the user just learned the previous layout, they want change for change sake; and also because they were in such a rush to get something out, they have not taken enough time to think about what long-term buttons should be there and how to keep them stable from release to release (same location, color, shape and away from other 'dangerous' buttons that you don't want to hit by accident).
on the side, I design and build hardware (audio gear and test equip gear) and all of my designs use hardware buttons and I think long and hard before I pick a layout. once I do, I stick with it and the goal is to have the gear still be around and useful 20 or more years later. almost no one has that goal anymore - what a shame.
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Re:Buttons vs Touch screens (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing auto makers can do is bring back old-school dashboards with tactile buttons laid out in a distinct, logical way.
That's the kind of thing aircraft manufacturer's understood a long time ago. When they switched to "glass cockpits" they actually did serious ergonomic design and testing. That's why many key controls are still of the sort you mention, and some critical functions still use old-fashioned "analog" (really electro-mechanical) displays and whatnot. Even before they went to glass cockpits aircraft designs involved serious ergonomic design/testing. Part of it is that the greater complexity of aircraft, and the more advanced instrumentation compared to cars, forced them to confront this problem a long time ago. Part of it though is the aircraft industry has these eccentric ideas about making things functional and useful. With cars it's "look at the pretty lights - marketing will love this".
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That's why my standard example for ergonomic design is a cockpit: Even with that overwhelming number of buttons, leversand displays and whatnots, there is one simple rule: 1 button = 1 function
In theory, you can control everything with three buttons: select, confirm, back/up/exit (like most computer monitors do; select up/down is a bonus) and many designers tell us that cleaner interfaces are simpler to use. But compare changing the picture brightness on an old fashioned CRT knob to finding your way through
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The main reason for ergonomics in aircraft cockpits isn't so much due to complexity as it is due to the large number of crashes caused by seemingly insignificant layout flaws... like putting an autopilot disengage switch near a foot rest, an important indicator falling into a blind spot, similar indicators getting confused with something else, bad lighting causing control positions to get misread, etc. So they need to find the best spot for everything to reduce strain on pilots and potential for pilot error
Re:Buttons vs Touch screens (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly this. With a touch screen you MUST look at the device to command it. There's no alternative. With voice commands, they get triggered by conversation. (This happened to my in-laws when they were on the phone with my wife.) Or they could get triggered by audio coming over your radio. Imagine what happens when an ad for Burger King comes on the radio and they direct everybody to the nearest restaurant!
This needs to become part of law and driving instructions. Fiddling with any kind of touch screen when in a driving lane needs to be against the law.
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Most voice command systems I've ever seen (with the exception of Kinect and "OK Google") use some sort of button trigger before it will accept a command. Also, in cars, voice command systems will mute the radio when in "voice command mode".
Re:Buttons vs Touch screens (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a suggestion, instead of creating a new law to cover each new gadget that someone invents, why don't we invent a single category, like say, "distracted driving" and actually enforce it?
And if you don't want people using the features the manufacturer is putting in the car, maybe we could have some laws targeting the manufacturer... or how about we reduce corporate liability shields to the point where the manufacturer begins to worry that their products are killing people?
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Or how about the touch screen disables itself until the vehicle is at a full stop. My friends father had a Lexus hybrid crossover which did just that. When the vehicle was moving a message displayed that the screen was disabled. You had to stop to enter an address into the nav system or make a change.
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The "Safety" features in car computers are great examples of the law of unintended consequences. They generally make driving far more dangerous than if they just let people use the device.
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Fiddling with any kind of touch screen when in a driving lane needs to be against the law.
It is - it's called 'driving without due care and attention'.
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The Rav4 was an otherwise decent vehicle, but they managed to make even controlling the radio a huge pain in the ass. The touchscreen was not easy to use, couldn't be used without looking (I rent a lot of cars, and have yet to meet a real-button radio th
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Buttons vs Touch screens? I must be really ancient, because I still hate the replacement of Knobs with Buttons. There is nothing more user-friendly than a rotating volume control knob you can reach for in the dark without taking your eyes off the road, vs. finding a little button and hoping it's not set to the wrong mode.
Oh and while I'm at it, what's the deal with the "fade-in" response volume control knobs where when you turn up the volume, it only increases a half-second later? Give me the old-fash
News for Luddites? Stuff That Fears? (Score:3, Funny)
What's with all the anti-tech posts lately? We're supposed to be technology for technologies sake! Drive me to distraction, I want radar, a HUD, ten different kinds of TV, wireless internet, porn, inflatable sexbots
Let the mundanes worry about the safety crap.
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I have all that stuff in my mothers basement, but she's been trying to explain that building it into a 1200 pound 100 mph machine and sharing the road with others while driven to distraction might be viewed as "anti-social" or even "sociopathic", and I'm like whatever mom. Maybe you could have a word with her?
Re:News for Luddites? Stuff That Fears? (Score:5, Interesting)
My current car (2005 Pontiac Bonneville GXP) and prior car (1999 Bonneville SSE) both have/had HUDs - Love 'em. My mom's 2011 Camaro also has a HUD. Speed (and engine RPM in the Camaro) are shown constantly. High beam and turn indicators illuminated when active. A "Check gauges" Warning when idiot light on or gauge amiss. The two newer cars also show limited radio/song information but only when user is changing settings.
I have really grown use to being able to seeing my speed without having to drop my eyes from the road. Shame these devices are not available in more cars. My 78 year old mom is so used to having a HUD in the car that she didn't want to buy a new car without one.
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HUD's realy need to be standard, love mine in 2000 grand prix gtp. Even a GPS near the A pillar is pretty good at not changing my focus to much but the hud is near perfect.
smart tech = intelligence test (Score:2)
I was just thinking that this "smart technology" acts like a useful intelligence test: anyone who actually tries to use it while driving is clearly too stupid to be driving (or do anything else). We could improve the state of humanity quite a bit if we executed people who think they can drive while texting. The trouble is you can only use that trick once, after that they'd probably modify their behavior, and you'd have to think of some other way of identifying them in the next generation.
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You can be a Luddite, a fool, or a smart user of technology.
Heck, I just bought a new radio (one with bluetooth linking capability) for my car (one with power "assisted" everything but none of this all-electronic nonsense where you can't feel the road) and it was actually non-trivial to find one that would let me set the color to red (rhodopsin comes in handy at night) and also would let me turn off the dancing light show visualizer on the music.
I did find one (thanks Pioneer), but the point is there are s
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I'm not sure who is saying they don't want autopilots for their cars, I definitely do. Certainly no one who is driv.. I mean parking in traffic for hours. I fully willing to trust a computer to move me at 5 mph, stop and go, for 45 minutes while I get work done. I understand some people like to drive their cars recreationally, but I can't imagine that city driving is a place anyone wants to do that. A manual transmission in gridlock traffic seems like punishment incurred by offending a lesser deity. Chauffe
Design a better User Interface? (Score:5, Insightful)
If the system needs clarification and this requires the driver to inspect the screen, isn't that a problem with the implementation?
Clarification should be requested and should be given in voice alone.
Anything else defeats the purpose of the voice interface, doesn't it?
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You are joking, but that is pretty much what I'd expect from a working voice command interface (minus the misunderstandings!):
To be able to make conversation about the narrow field of $device_purpose.
So yes, a voice operated radio should be able to tell me what radio station I am listening to.
And it should understand common keywords that have to do with music, news, sound and such things.
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Have you ever called a company (maybe a bank) and gotten that "Press 1 for
Sounds more distracting that just having it posted as a visual interface near where you're
So I guess (Score:2)
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User Interfaces Need Maturity (Score:3)
Some of the distraction I find in my "smart car" features are due to poor user experience--location of hard buttons, layouts on screen of information or touch buttons ,and quality of speech recognition. From the article:
It's the clarification that is the problem, not that it is voice activated (i.e. user experience). I find this with Siri when I'm driving (using built-in blue tooth to integrate it like a "smart" car function) when trying to listen to or respond to a text using voice. Approximately 1 out of 5 times Siri misunderstands a word and I have to change the message. This pulls my attention from driving and I usually give up and wait for a light to try again.
This is just one example. In dash systems need more work on user experience.
Re:User Interfaces Need Maturity (Score:5, Informative)
Voice activated systems in newer radio systems would seem to offer an advantage over older car radios of keeping the drivers eyes on the road. (Indeed, tuning an older radio was used as a baseline task in these tests.) But according to Mehler, problems arise when the system needs clarification of what the driver wants
It's the clarification that is the problem, not that it is voice activated (i.e. user experience).
I think it's also important to compare apples to apples. Before navigation systems, what did I use to get someplace I don't know where to get to? A map and/or written directions. Sure, I went over it before I ever got in a car to drive, but as I progress in the route, you often have to double check stuff. Then you find yourself glancing over the map and the piece of paper, grabbing everything when you come to a stop sign or red light, etc. Basically, you're just as distracted.
Navigation is distracting. Navigation now is less distracting. Both in the past and now, if you have a passenger you should let them navigate / be in charge of messing with the gps.
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Both in the past and now, if you have a passenger you should let them navigate / be in charge of messing with the gps.
"Turn left here! Left!"
"No! Other left!"
Thanks, I'll navigate for myself.
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Navigation is distracting. Navigation now is less distracting. Both in the past and now, if you have a passenger you should let them navigate / be in charge of messing with the gps.
I agree. However, letting my GF navigate while I'm driving has frequently gotten us lost.
Only while stationary (Score:3)
Many of these smart systems - such as entering a destination into the navigation system should be made to only work while the vehicle is stationary so as not to distract the driver. It makes sense to input the destination before starting the journey rather than 'on the go'.
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But the system should make an exception when it senses that there is someone in the passenger seat.
My previous car dissallowed control of the navigation system while driving, even when there was someone in the passenger seat who was perfectly able to safely control the navigation system. Very frustrating at times.
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All of our recent cars weigh the passenger (don't tell the ladies) to see if the passenger airbag should be on, so the data is available anyhow.
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If a driver wants to get distracted, it will take more than a touch-interface lock-out to stop them from doing so... and looking at the GPS map even if you cannot interact with it already counts as a distraction on its own merits.
Changing channel or track on the car's radio is not illegal yet is still one of the most common causes of rear-endings.
Crappy voice software (Score:2)
Or how about just install a decent intelligent voice system/menu. Every car system I've ever used has been crap-tastic. "Call Dave", you said "Call Carl, calling carl...ring.. ring. ", Crap (press cancel), "Main menu, what would you like to do". (press cancel). "Calling Carl.. ring ring."..
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Every car system I've ever used has been crap-tastic. "Call Dave", you said "Call Carl, calling carl...ring.. ring. ", Crap (press cancel)
Hey, if you really don't want to call me, then quit Liking me on Facebook!
(yes, my name *is* Carl)
Wrong category (Score:2)
This story should have been filed under "Duh!" or "Obviously" or "Didn't anyone stop and think about this first?"
Navigation issues (Score:2)
Yes, I know how that is...you try to get it to plot a course to nearest Best-Buy while you're out in an unfamiliar neighborhood, but you have to check or it'll route you to the Best Buy headquarters 4 states away (or something innane). I wouldn't want the navigational system to start giving me directions without confirming that it had locked on to the address that I REALLY wanted to go to.
User interface design (Score:5, Insightful)
It all comes down to user interface design. A good interface will grab you attention only when it has something important to say. And it will avoid false warnings. A lousy interface *is* distracting. So is an interface that screws up, by grabbing your attention with incorrect or irrelevant information.
Just as an example: my current car has a very distracting audible and visual warning when it detects ice on the road. The problem is: this warning delivers 99% false positives (in fact, it seems to be triggered simply by the thermometer crossing a temperature threshold (3C), in either direction). So - yes - it is a dangerous distraction. However, if the manufacturer had actually gotten it right, it would have been very valuable.
As far as issuing commands, it is really the same thing: poor design. Is the interface reliable enough that you can trust it to do what you say? Does it give positive confirmation, or leave you wondering?
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Just as an example: my current car has a very distracting audible and visual warning when it detects ice on the road. The problem is: this warning delivers 99% false positives (in fact, it seems to be triggered simply by the thermometer crossing a temperature threshold (3C), in either direction). So - yes - it is a dangerous distraction. However, if the manufacturer had actually gotten it right, it would have been very valuable.
Opel/Vauxhall or other GM brand?
I alweays had the feeling the engineers only included this because they could add another feature to the ads without adding any new hardware. There is no use in a warning light if it becomes NORMAL between November and Febuary. THANK YOU, I KNOW IT'S WINTER!
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Is anybody surprised? (Score:2)
I've been looking at some of these in-car infotainment systems for the last couple of years thinking they'd be as bad as a smartphone.
I've always thought the push to the connected car would be more of a distraction, and not something I'd personally want to be operating while driving the car.
Cadillac recently was running a commercial saying essentially "our car has more buttons than yours" because of the digital console. And my first thoughts were "great, I'd never find anything".
I'm on the wrong side of 40
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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I can take the bus for a fraction of the cost of owning a car. I dont care if it takes 45 minutes because I have a smart phone, or tablet. im connected to all my friends, including the one im going to meet up with for drinks and dinner. my phone will warn me about making my stop, and let me recharge the fare on my card while i leave the driving to a competent, qualified and much more seasoned bus driver. i dont have to pay insurance, worry about parking, fret about the cost of gas, or earn a ticket for speeding
to put it quite simply: stop trying to sell me a $30,000 iphone case with wheels.
They obviously aren't trying to sell a "$30,000 iphone case with wheels" to you because you, obviously, are not their target market. Either you are not interested in owning a car, based on your post, or you do want to own a car but are just annoyed that you haven't reached the point where you can afford a moderately priced new car (i.e. $30K).
As for the rest of your screed, all of these things are just part of owning a car, much like house taxes are part of owning a house. You do realize that you can get
Smart Cars Can Be Annoying (Score:2)
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I recently drove a family member's "smart car" and tried to change the GPS destination in mid trip. The voice control kept misinterpreting the address, requiring me to choose from an onscreen menu full of wrong choices. Eventually I gave up on the voice control and tried to have a passenger enter it in manually while I continued to drive in the general direction of our destination. However, the car refused to take manual input while it was in motion despite the fact that the input was coming from a passenger. Even worse, once the car started moving, it erased all of the information that had been entered up until that point! That meant pulling over on a busy road or frantically typing it in at a red light while trying to get the address in before the light turned green. What should have been a simple process that could be done while the car was in motion turned out to a be a very frustrating and distracting experience because the car thought it was smart.
Hey, wanna scare the crap out of yourself?
Imagine this guy is a commercial airline pilot.
"Well, I've never flown one of these kinds of planes before, but no biggie, I'll figure out the controls as we go along."
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Are you suggesting mandatory training simulators for operating car navigation systems? Or are you insinuating that I'm somehow incompetent because I attempted to use a GPS in mid trip?
I'm saying, specifically, that it would be utterly terrifying if commercial airline pilots engaged in that kind of behavior: you took it personally for reasons only you could know.
You taking your eyes off the road to fiddle with a GPS could, at most, kill the handful of people around you. A pilot flying a 747 with his head up his ass could kill a shitload of people, and cause massive amounts of property damage, depending on where he crashes.
chill out on the internet insults.
You need to 'chill out' on the emotional responses. FYI, that wasn'
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I took it personally because you said "Imagine this guy is a commercial airline pilot." (emphasis mine). Personal insult aside, you're comparing apples to oranges. Of course piloting an airplane for the first time carries more risk, and thus different training requirements and safety precautions, from driving a car on a previously travelled route.
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I took it personally because you said "Imagine this guy is a commercial airline pilot." (emphasis mine).
And? Are you trying to say that the idea of an airline pilot who doesn't know everything about flying the plane before take-off isn't a terrifying proposition? Because I would disagree with that.
Of course piloting an airplane for the first time carries more risk,
Which is probably why professional pilots RTFM and know what they're up against before hopping into the cockpit and putting thousands of lives at risk. Granted, drivers are slightly less risky if only by virtue of the fact that they're not cruising 30,000 feet above populated areas, but that's no excuse for not know
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Well hey, you're showing humility, which already puts you miles ahead of the vast majority of Internet Tough Guys.
I admit, I can get pretty wound up in these threads myself, but part of the reason I like Slashdot is that this crowd is usually pretty good at setting aside emotion and basing arguments on logic. Usually.
We lose that aspect of the community, and this might as well be the comments page for Yahoo! News.
TL;DR - no worries, mate - we all have sacred cows.
Of course they don't work (Score:2)
You'd think being able to operate it by voice alone would be beneficial compared to older radio systems.
No I wouldn't. Voice control is somewhat like a command line interface. Potentially powerful if you are already proficient at it but inscrutable if you aren't already well trained. Furthermore there is no standardization between vehicles. Unlike buttons and steering wheels which are well standardized, voice interfaces have no such commonality between automakers. Each vendor rolls their own. This makes it basically impossible for me to just hop in any random car and do useful tasks. Furthermore few peo
They didn't use this baseline for distraction? (Score:2)
From there:
String 'em together and put one man in front (Score:2)
Truck got dumber (Score:2)
My most recent vehicle purchase was a Toyota Tacoma. Because I needed a truck, and I wanted a stick shift. The truck has no optional features at all. The nice thing is, there is almost nothing that needs fiddling with. Simple gauges. A nice but easy to control radio. No funny collections of buttons. Not even electric door locks or window controls.
Also no cruise control, but it seems like a small price to pay for having a truck that is otherwise simple, reliable and doesn't suck fuel like a three year
GPS and distraction. (Score:2)
Which is why every GPS system I've ever used starts off with a disclaimer that tells you not to program the thing while you're driving. I travel for a living so the choice isn't whether I want a screen or not. It's whether the GPS is telling me directions out loud or I'm trying to read them off a piece of paper when I'm d
Lack of Tactile (Score:2)
Ironically (Score:2)
My car navigation system and "infotainment" system locks out certain seemingly random features while the car is in motion. For example, you can change Bluetooth devices while the car is in motion but you cannot sync a new device to the system. I did not know this. I found it incredibly distracting to try to figure out what the hell was wrong with the system while driving, and I wasn't even the one trying to use the system.
They suck (Score:3)
I'm with most of the commenters here. We have a small fleet of company cars (5). We recently upgraded them as our existing vehicles, despite being 2008 models, were around 350k miles. Anyway, I evaluated a Ford Focus and hated it. The whole darn thing was a computer, or so it seemed. I want my employees focusing on the ROAD, not the vehicle gadgets. We ended up going with 2013 Honda Civics after my boss got involved because he's friends with the salesman. Even those are very sucky. The menu interfaces are total crap, make no sense, even to the point of feeling counterintuitive. The salesman I worked with kept touting "it's got Bluetooth, bluetooth, bluetooth" until he was practically blue in the face. I told him "Bluetooth whatever. How do I turn off all this shit?" He looked dumbfounded.
I don't need some distracting info graphic to tell me a door is open. If a car is smart enough to tell me a tire is low, tell me WHICH DAMN TIRE. And if I want to turn on the radio, let me turn a little dial in the middle of the front console area, not some generic plus-minus button on a steering wheel that does different things every time I touch it. Otherwise I end up being frustrated with the stupid thing and not focusing on driving safely.
Nobody invoking Betteridge's Law of Headlines (Score:2)
Malware in song tracks and movie dialogs. (Score:2)
And the car obeys these commands in these voice stream! These voice enabled car controls are dangerous. They should be banned.
If only they would drive themselves as well... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)