Why Cell Phone Bans Don't Work

I think it depends on the particular controls and how they're all designed.

GPS helps you drive less; it guides you directly to your destination, so you don't drive around in circles looking for it, you don't have to constantly pull over and look at a map, or worse with some people, it keeps them from having a paper map unfolded over their steering wheel where they're trying to look at the unwieldy paper map and drive at the same time (not a common sight these days, but it used to be >10 years ago). The main problem with GPS is people who try to program them while they're driving, and cellphone GPSes which aren't affixed to the dash and aren't that easy to use. I use my cellphone's GPS, and it's much handier than paper maps of course, but it has problems; it has to sit on my leg as I drive, every time I take a corner I have to use one hand to keep it from sliding onto the floor and then getting confused as to which direction we're going, and if I need to change anything as I drive, well obviously that's no different than texting and driving. It doesn't help that the built-in GPS units that come with cars are generally condemned as horrible and obsolete (they never update them, they just expect you to buy a new car every year or two), so they're no better. Some of the built-in ones I've tried on high-end brands like $90k Audis have had absolutely abominable UIs.

Built-in screens aren't supposed to play movies (unless they're in the back seat, out of the driver's view). I'm pretty sure there's a law about that.

The built-in MP3 players in theory shouldn't be any more distracting than any other car radio/CD player. The main problem is the sheer volume of music that can be stored in one, so selecting something may be more distracting than just picking one of a handful of CDs out of your storage bin like in the olden days. But the one big problem I see with some cars is that they're trying to replace all the dashboard functions (stereo, HVAC, etc.) with a single touchscreen with a shitty UI. So instead of using a knob to adjust the fan speed like before, you're expected to navigate menus on a touchscreen to do this. Even if you didn't need to navigate menus, there's no tactile feedback here, so you have to fully concentrate on the touchscreen. It should be pretty obvious how horrible this idea is, but apparently it's not so obvious to Ford, Lincoln, and BMW, who are all pushing systems like this hard. Ford in particular went from a very high position on some "initial quality" surveys to very close to the bottom in a short span of time, all because they started pushing their "MyFordTouch" (by Microsoft) system. I guess a bunch of customers got suckered into it at the dealership, and then after living with it for a few months realized how horrible it is. Also, Ford tries hard to push this system by making it non-optional in the higher trim levels; I was looking at a few models a while ago, and the only way to avoid the MFT system was to get the lower models, but then you lose out on all the nice extras like the upgraded suspension, sunroof, etc.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/KGfzgDYkw-w/why-cell-phone-bans-dont-work

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