Several studies are beginning to conclude that large touch screens in cars are dangerous and manufacturers are beginning to be urged to bring back old-style controls.
In recent years, the way drivers interact with cars has changed a lot.
Os physical buttons disappeared gradually from instrument panels as more functions were transferred to touchscreens.
Os touch screens on vehicle dashboards date back to the 1980s. But modern cars concentrate functions on these systems far beyond what we’ve ever seen, to the point where a car looks, for the most part, like a computer.
This can create the impression of a modern, technologically advanced vehicle. However, scientific evidence increasingly points to the fact that touch screens compromise our security.
the independent car safety assessment program for Australia and New Zealand, announced that from 2026 it will ask car manufacturers to “bring back the buttons” for important driver controls, including headlights and windshield wipers. Similar movements are underway in Europe.
ANCAP Safety will explicitly assess how vehicle design supports safe driving, not just how well occupants are protected in the event of a collision – What does it mean to put an end to touchscreens? that control everything in your car.
What human factors research says about distraction
Decades of highway safety research show that human error plays a role in the vast majority of accidents. And the design of interfaces inside the vehicle can contribute to how often drivers make safety errors.
Driving errors are often associated with distraction of the driver. But what exactly constitutes distraction, and how does it occur?
In human factors research, distraction is typically classified as visual, manual, cognitive, or a combination of these. A distracting event or stimulus can take a driver’s eyes off the road, hands off the wheel, mind off the driving task – or all three at the same time.
This is why writing messages while driving is considered particularly dangerous: it uses our visual, manual and cognitive resources simultaneously. The more types of attention a task requires, the greater the level of distraction it creates.
As interactions with menus on touch screens can, in theory, produce comparable to writing messages. Adjusting a vehicle’s temperature using a slider on a screen forces the driver to divert visual attention from the road and allocate cognitive resources to the task.
In contrast, a physical rotary knob allows you to make the same adjustment with minimal or no visual input. Haptic feedback and muscle memory compensate for the lack of visual information and allow you to complete the task while keeping your eyes on the road.
How distracting are touchscreen features really?
Perhaps the clearest and most accessible evidence to date comes from a 2020 UK survey conducted by TRL, an independent transport research company.
Drivers performed simulated highway driving while performing common tasks inside the car. These included selecting music or navigating menus using touchscreen systems like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
Performance was compared with reference driving without any secondary task, as well as with voice-based interaction.
When drivers interacted with touchscreens, their reaction times increased markedly.
At highway speeds, this delay in reaction time corresponds to a measurable increase in braking distance, meaning a driver would travel several additional car lengths before reacting to a hazard.
Lane keeping and general driving performance have also deteriorated as a result of interacting with touchscreens.
The most impressive aspect of this study is that interacting with touchscreens was as distracting, and in some cases even more distracting, than writing messages while driving or making a phone call with the phone in your hand.
Drivers don’t even like touchscreens
Concerns about design overly reliant on touchscreens are not limited to laboratory studies. They also emerged clearly in consumer surveys abroad.
Data from a recent survey of 92,000 US buyers indicates that infotainment systems – the official term for the touchscreen in the center of the instrument panel – continue to be the most problematic feature in new cars.
The survey shows that infotainment systems generate more complaints in the first 90 days of ownership than any other vehicle system.
Most complaints are related to usability. Drivers report frustration with basic controls that have been moved to touchscreens – such as lights, wipers and temperature – and now require multiple steps and visual attention to be operated while driving.
Could voice recognition be the solution?
Voice recognition is often touted as a safer alternative to touchscreens because it eliminates the need to look away from the road. But evidence suggests it’s not entirely risk-free either.
A large meta-analysis of experimental studies examined driver performance while using in-vehicle and smartphone voice recognition systems, combining results from .
Across the entire body of evidence, voice interaction worsens driving performance compared to driving without any secondary task. It increases reaction times and negatively influences lane keeping and hazard detection.
When voice systems are compared with visual-manual systems, performance is slightly better with voice control. But while voice recognition is less distracting than touchscreens, remains measurably more distracting than baseline driving, where drivers do not need to interact with any menus or change settings.
The return of buttons
The evidence is clear: the controls we frequently use while driving – temperature, fan speed, windshield defogging, volume and many others – should remain tactile.
The driver should not have to divert visual attention from the road to control these elements. It’s especially problematic when these controls are hidden in layered menus, requiring multiple taps just to find the function you want to change.
Touchscreens are best suited for secondary functions and settings typically adjusted before driving, such as navigation setup, multimedia selection, and vehicle personalization.
The good news is that the evidence is being translated into car safety assessment programs. From this year onwards, ANCAP Safety and its counterpart in the European Union, the Euro NCAP, will require physical controls for certain features to award the maximum safety rating to new vehicles.
It is up to manufacturers to decide whether to comply or not. However, some car manufacturers, such as Volkswagen and Hyundai, have already responded to these requirements and consumer pressure to bring back the buttons.
