Cars will need fewer screens and more buttons to earn a 5-star safety rating in Europe | Euro NCAP will introduce new testing rules in 2026 requiring physical controls for the highest safety score
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Well, presumably this group is more about models of cars and less about individual driver behavior.
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There was no realization. I never said anything to the contrary.
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Your brakes will be available again after this mandatory 30s ad.
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I didn't mean individual driver behavior, I mean ban touchscreens from accepting any inputs at all while driving.
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I bought my Mazda 3 used. The captain's knob will be sorely missed if I ever get a different car.
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You don't genuinely believe anyone is installing and wiring up individual buttons in a car, do you? That whole row of buttons is delivered as a single unit just like the screen is and will have a single connector just like the screen does. Sure, you then have to install and test two units (screen and buttons) but that is about it in terms of extra work.
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The second dumbest engineering idea. The dumbest was clearly the car itself, letting the average person control a device that can accelerate hundreds or thousands of kilograms to speeds where reaction times of fractions of a second matter for safety was clearly one of the stupidest ideas ever.
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Lol of course not, but it's assembled somewhere which is why it has a cost more than the simple cost of the button itself. It's a bespoke piece of hardware specifically designed for the vehicle instead of a commodity LCD screen which can be mass produced for multiple vehicles.
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To be fair, it's at least closer to the windshield, so you're more likely to see something through peripheral vision with the dash screen than your phone, which you need to keep out of view of police.
Still bad, but probably not as bad.
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cars will need to use buttons, dials, or stalks for […] the horn
Very excited for when I get cut off in my 2030 Polestar 3 and can adjust my honk volume dial all the way to 11 before Family Feud smashing that sucker through my dash and into the gates of hell.
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We already have distracted driving laws here. You can't use electronic devices like phones while driving. How a giant iPad in the middle of your dashboard doesn't count blows my mind.
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I disagree. I don't want to have to take my eyes off the road to change my music, or turn the volume up/down. They need to be physical buttons/knobs.
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That's a plus. I drove a hire car with a joystick/dial/button thing that could control the touch screen. It was so much easier to pay attention to driving while controlling something on screen. With touch screens you need to watch your finger as you press because there's no tactile feedback.
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There are buttons on the steering wheel to skip songs and adjust the volume.
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sounds like europe is really sending a very loud, deafining ^FUCK^ ^YOU^ to elon and tesla.
and I am absolutely here for it.
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While this does fuck him, it's also sound safety science. Touch screens have made cars less safe. It just so happens that Musk's company makes shitty unsafe cars which got rid of buttons to cut costs.
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oh I agree. the thing is elon has explicitly said that he doesn't want a bunch of knobs in his cars and they should only have a central control screen to run everything. even the backup shift device is a touch sensor somewhere around the rear view iirc (never driven one nor do I want to). I essence, an entire continent is telling one company explicitly that your cars are not the safest on the road no matter what you claim. that's going to be a massive hit on the company's reputation and value and it couldn't happen to a more deserving induhvidual.
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Tesla was the trailblazer, but what's worse is that everyone else followed. Now Mazda of all companies is kind of a trailblazer in getting back to sanity (there were articles about them ditching touchscreens or at least touchscreen-only setups a couple of years ago already).
What's really funny to me is that even so-called premium German brands went to pretty much full touch. Used to be they'd put in the engineering time to make buttons feel more solid to push and nowadays they just give you a big slab of touchscreen you can't even feel properly while driving.
Everyone is just pinching pennies because touchscreens are cheaper than buttons.
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Would be lovely, but what I'm afraid is going to happen is that you have to stop in order to change the climate settings because some idiot bean counter told the UX and engineering departments to find a way to save money so they got rid of the climate control module and put it in the infotainment screen. And the passenger can't even change the song while driving because they got rid of the forward and backward buttons too.
Mandate physical controls for everything that the driver has a reasonable need or desire to touch while driving (climate, seated heats, horn, etc). And then also do what you suggested in addition to that. Can't let car manufacturers have too much free reign.
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button navigated
2000s Volvo?
Or 2000s BMW?
