Enable touchscreen while in motion *not a hack*

So many people have mentioned their displeasure to disabling touchscreen while driving that I felt the need to post.

Back in the day, before touch screens or screens that share lots of information, everything was by touch, tactile touch. The only reason you might have to take your eyes off the road for, was just to read the time or read what station you were tuned to. It was fantastic! You could change most everything without taking your eyes off the road.

I am not a fan of the migration to everything being on a touchscreen in cars and on phones.

Things can happen on the road at anytime where you need quick reactions to avoid. I've had to avoid ladders, lawn chairs, boxes, a dead deer that was dead center in my lane at night where there was no street lights. Those are the more rare occasions, but they are expensive ones. Expensive in money, time, stress, and annoyance to deal with insurance and the repair companies, and sometimes the frustration of now paying more for insurance for the next few years.

It is easy to blame to person who dropped the item on the road, but in the end, we are responsible and most, 99% of the time, these things can be avoided with alert driving, space in front of you, and quick safe reactions.

I've had my share of close calls when touch screens were becoming more common on phones. Mine is now mounted always on my windshield, just a hair off my line of sight, visually between my steering wheel and rear view mirror. Even from there, I use voice to text for sending all messages and use it to read messages to me, and to interact with the phone.


However, I am not a fan of commands and interaction getting locked out while driving. I can't tell you how often we are driving and we want to do something, especially with the Nav, and can't do it and can't pull over because, no room to safely pull over(may get just the tires off the lane to park), not allowed to park on this road, before this sign, that sign, during blah hours.

My wife and I now use Google Navigation (her iPhone and my Android) in the truck ~75% of the time. The Navigation software has way way too many issues and things aren't getting fixed quickly enough. I can't even successfully submit corrections to the map via the HERE app or website.

Navigation software in cars has been out for > 10yrs. I don't know how car companies (all of them) can make such terrible deals with these terrible third-party software companies, model generation after model generation... Seriously, stick with the big three, TomTom, Garmin, or Google.


A little off on a tangent...

I'm a fan of completely locking out all touch screen interaction while driving and more tactile interaction and larger Heads-Up-Displays (use the whole drivers side window with info at the top, sides, and bottom).
 
Looked above. Don't see what you're referring to. There is no US regulation saying a touch screen must be disabled when a car is in motion. If there is, why does this not apply to Ford (I was in a 2018 F150 today playing with my coworkers ACP), Jeep, Volvo, BMW, Chevrolet? Everyone one of those companies have touchscreens that work while the car is in motion. In fact I know of no one else that disables the touchscreen besides our dear Mazda.

Lexus disables touch screen while driving - at least Nav and phone setup. I am not sure if all Toyota does.
 
Back in the day, before touch screens or screens that share lots of information, everything was by touch, tactile touch. The only reason you might have to take your eyes off the road for, was just to read the time or read what station you were tuned to. It was fantastic! You could change most everything without taking your eyes off the road.

I think you're painting a bit too rosy of a picture there, my friend. Back before cell phones, do you know what the number one cause of accidents was? Exactly the same thing it is today: driver inattention from? People... looking at the radio.

@Alphadog: upon further review, yes Lexus and the Prius lock some things down.
 
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So many people have mentioned their displeasure to disabling touchscreen while driving that I felt the need to post.

Back in the day, before touch screens or screens that share lots of information, everything was by touch, tactile touch. The only reason you might have to take your eyes off the road for, was just to read the time or read what station you were tuned to. It was fantastic! You could change most everything without taking your eyes off the road.

I am not a fan of the migration to everything being on a touchscreen in cars and on phones.

Things can happen on the road at anytime where you need quick reactions to avoid. I've had to avoid ladders, lawn chairs, boxes, a dead deer that was dead center in my lane at night where there was no street lights. Those are the more rare occasions, but they are expensive ones. Expensive in money, time, stress, and annoyance to deal with insurance and the repair companies, and sometimes the frustration of now paying more for insurance for the next few years.

It is easy to blame to person who dropped the item on the road, but in the end, we are responsible and most, 99% of the time, these things can be avoided with alert driving, space in front of you, and quick safe reactions.

I've had my share of close calls when touch screens were becoming more common on phones. Mine is now mounted always on my windshield, just a hair off my line of sight, visually between my steering wheel and rear view mirror. Even from there, I use voice to text for sending all messages and use it to read messages to me, and to interact with the phone.


However, I am not a fan of commands and interaction getting locked out while driving. I can't tell you how often we are driving and we want to do something, especially with the Nav, and can't do it and can't pull over because, no room to safely pull over(may get just the tires off the lane to park), not allowed to park on this road, before this sign, that sign, during blah hours.

My wife and I now use Google Navigation (her iPhone and my Android) in the truck ~75% of the time. The Navigation software has way way too many issues and things aren't getting fixed quickly enough. I can't even successfully submit corrections to the map via the HERE app or website.

Navigation software in cars has been out for > 10yrs. I don't know how car companies (all of them) can make such terrible deals with these terrible third-party software companies, model generation after model generation... Seriously, stick with the big three, TomTom, Garmin, or Google.


A little off on a tangent...

I'm a fan of completely locking out all touch screen interaction while driving and more tactile interaction and larger Heads-Up-Displays (use the whole drivers side window with info at the top, sides, and bottom).

Even using voice to text and read SMS messages has shown in studies to be distracting. Your solutions may be a bit safer, but they don't support the argument that they remove much risk. Our brains are still trying to multi-task and concentrate on driving and messaging at the same time leads to both not being done well.

http://www.businessinsider.com/voice-recognition-in-cars-is-a-distraction-2013-6

But regarding the touchscreen - it is idiotic that the passenger can't use it while driving.
 
Here is some text from the Federal Registry:

The NHTSA Guidelines list certain secondary, non-driving-related tasks that, based on NHTSA's research, are believed by the agency to interfere inherently with a driver's ability to safely control the vehicle. The Guidelines recommend that those in-vehicle devices be designed so that they cannot be used by the driver to perform such tasks while the driver is driving. The list of tasks considered to inherently interfere with a driver's ability to safely operate the vehicle include: displaying images or video not related to driving; displaying automatically scrolling text; requiring manual text entry of more than six button or key presses during a single task; or requiring reading more than 30 characters of text (not counting punctuation marks). The NHTSA Guidelines specify that this recommendation is intended to prevent the driver from engaging in tasks such as watching video footage, visual-manual text messaging, visual-manual internet browsing, or visual-manual social media browsing while driving. The recommendation is not intended to prevent the display of images related to driving, such as images related to the status of vehicle occupants or vehicle maneuvering or images depicting the rearview or blind zone areas of a vehicle.

You can read the doc at https://www.federalregister.gov/doc...-guidelines-for-in-vehicle-electronic-devices
When written it was recommended and intended to become an requirement but I do not think it has made it out yet. Quebec also has a strong reg in effect and several states have distracted driving requirements.
 
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Here is some text from the Federal Registry:

The NHTSA Guidelines list certain secondary, non-driving-related tasks that, based on NHTSA's research, are believed by the agency to interfere inherently with a driver's ability to safely control the vehicle. The Guidelines recommend that those in-vehicle devices be designed so that they cannot be used by the driver to perform such tasks while the driver is driving. The list of tasks considered to inherently interfere with a driver's ability to safely operate the vehicle include: displaying images or video not related to driving; displaying automatically scrolling text; requiring manual text entry of more than six button or key presses during a single task; or requiring reading more than 30 characters of text (not counting punctuation marks). The NHTSA Guidelines specify that this recommendation is intended to prevent the driver from engaging in tasks such as watching video footage, visual-manual text messaging, visual-manual internet browsing, or visual-manual social media browsing while driving. The recommendation is not intended to prevent the display of images related to driving, such as images related to the status of vehicle occupants or vehicle maneuvering or images depicting the rearview or blind zone areas of a vehicle.

You can read the doc at https://www.federalregister.gov/doc...-guidelines-for-in-vehicle-electronic-devices
When written it was recommended and intended to become an requirement but I do not think it has made it out yet. Quebec also has a strong reg in effect and several states have distracted driving requirements.

Yes, but the earlier post mentioned this behavior was due to regulations. These are guidelines and non-binding. Regulations are required to be met.

“These proposed NHTSA Guidelines will lead to issuance of final NHTSA Guidelines, which will not have the force and effect of law and will not be regulations.”

We don’t know if the diasabled touchscreen is due to these guidelines or for other reasons.
 
Mazda is not the only company disabling touchscreen input while moving. My 2008 GMC Acadia would not let me input an address into the nav system via the touchscreen while it was moving. It would accept voice commands. The same with my brother-in-laws 2015 Ford Explorer.
 
still don't understand the need people want to touch the screen while driving. not only is it dangerous, you get a lot more control with the physical knobs, and it's more comfortable to use that than touch the screen, plus you just get finger prints on it when you touch it.
 
I think we've covered that in this thread more then once.

Because: fingerprints isn't a good reason imo. I keep eye glass soft cloth in my car at all times. For glasses, sunglasses, phones and now infotainment.
 
It would be nice if we had the option of touch screen while driving, more so for me when I first purchased the car, but now that I've been driving it for a month or so now, I got use to not having the option. So I got use to everything on that screen being accessible from the knob and buttons in front of console when driving. With Nav and phone, it's the push of the voice button. It's nice not having to take my eyes off the road with that and the Heads up display.
 
It would be nice if we had the option of touch screen while driving, more so for me when I first purchased the car, but now that I've been driving it for a month or so now, I got use to not having the option. So I got use to everything on that screen being accessible from the knob and buttons in front of console when driving. With Nav and phone, it's the push of the voice button. It's nice not having to take my eyes off the road with that and the Heads up display.

Try using voice nav for setting an address in a different city or state.
 
I'm coming from a Jeep Wrangler where you can use the touchscreen while driving. Which I have no problem with except the ride in that thing is so bumpy that it's sometimes hard to hit the button I'm aiming for and still keep my eyes on the road.

I like the idea of Mazda's knob but I would definitely prefer to have the choice of using the screen. Although since I'm picking mine up next Saturday, I'm assuming it will have the latest software version and therefore not be hackable by this particular hack.
 
You won't miss being able to touch it with that Knob. Seriously. It's that good.
 
I'm coming from a Jeep Wrangler where you can use the touchscreen while driving. Which I have no problem with except the ride in that thing is so bumpy that it's sometimes hard to hit the button I'm aiming for and still keep my eyes on the road.

I like the idea of Mazda's knob but I would definitely prefer to have the choice of using the screen. Although since I'm picking mine up next Saturday, I'm assuming it will have the latest software version and therefore not be hackable by this particular hack.

As mentioned above, you won't miss the touchscreen when using the command knob.

if you do hack and add AA and Waze, then the touchscreen is handy. But without doing the tweaks, i didn't miss the touchscreen except for nav, but then I tend to use Waze or Google as it is just more complete then any factory nav.
 
Can they at least allow the Command knob to do everything it does while stopped? I wanted to switch from intermittent wipers to rain sensing. While I could get to the menu, I had to stop in order to check the box. I didn't have to select from a list, or read anything...just text a box.
 
...
Things can happen on the road at anytime where you need quick reactions to avoid. I've had to avoid ladders, lawn chairs, boxes, a dead deer that was dead center in my lane at night where there was no street lights. Those are the more rare occasions, but they are expensive ones. Expensive in money, time, stress, and annoyance to deal with insurance and the repair companies, and sometimes the frustration of now paying more for insurance for the next few years.
...

Without any distractions, I came upon a 6 or 8 foot aluminum ladder in the middle of my lane while at highway speeds in a hard rain. I didn't dare try and avoid it, so I went over it with my '97 MPV. I was fortunate that I had the split second to make a conscious thought of which action to take. Tore a gash in the gas tank, but didn't go through. Lucked out that time!

...
However, I am not a fan of commands and interaction getting locked out while driving. I can't tell you how often we are driving and we want to do something, especially with the Nav, and can't do it and can't pull over because, no room to safely pull over(may get just the tires off the lane to park), not allowed to park on this road, before this sign, that sign, during blah hours.

My wife and I also get a little frustrated about getting locked out while in motion, specially about inputting a new address. However, we both prefer to put up with that, than have someone who is much more capable than the average driver accidentally get distracted while changing the colors on the map and run into us.

I'm a fan of completely locking out all touch screen interaction while driving and more tactile interaction and larger Heads-Up-Displays (use the whole drivers side window with info at the top, sides, and bottom).

So am I! Good for Apple that put a lot of thought into this and didn't rush out with every app possible, and good for Mazda for making a conscious decision to treat their touch screen the way they do.
 
Disagree. Completely. I think we as a species are getting hung up on the fact that...it's a SCREEN.
OMG! SCREENS ARE BAD. DON'T TEXT AND DRIVE. YOU'LL KILL SOMEONE.
While I, of course, agree that you shouldn't look at your phone while driving, we have now equated the screen in our car to being the equivalent of the phone screen. SCREEN = EVIL. It's simply not. My car screen isn't going to make me take my eyes of the road for 10 seconds like reading or replying to a text might. It's no different then running the heater or the in dash old school radio.
Y'now what the #1 cause of crashes was in the 70's? Same thing it is today: distracted driving. Looking down to mess with the radio or switch out the 8 track tape. ;)
 
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