Last month the Dept. of Transportation, through NHTSA, issued proposed guidelines on drivers’ use of electronic devices that could distract them from driving. Wayne Cunningham, an automotive writer for CNet, has been mining the 177 page document and he’s uncovered regulations that would effectively cripple navigation systems as we know them and also reduce the amount of information a car’s systems can display to a driver at any one time.
Section V.5 of the Visual-Manual NHTSA Driver Distraction Guidelines for In-Vehicle Electronic Devices is devoted to graphical displays, including photographs and video, and NHTSA frowns on what they call “dynamic” displays. The guidelines call for static or “near-static” displays. Near-static would conform to NHTSA’s intention of prohibiting any act that would take up more than 2 continuous seconds of a driver’s attention. Obviously a static map on a navigation system would be of little practical value, compared to how drivers use today’s nav systems. A “near-static” display that updates in 2 second increments would be of little value at intersections and changes in direction. Lest you think this is an alarmist reading of a harmless regulation, the guidelines are very clear that their intent is to cripple dynamic navigation systems that show your car’s position on a moving map, or alternatively, a moving car on a fixed map.
V.5.b Dynamic map displays. The display of either static or quasi-static maps (quasi-static maps are static maps that are updated frequently, perhaps as often as every few seconds, but are not continuously moving) for the purpose of providing driving directions is acceptable. Dynamic, continuously-moving maps are not recommended. (emphasis added)
At 30 MPH you’re traveling 44 feet per second. A navigation system that only updates every 2 seconds would be functionally useless in most driving situations. You’d be past your turns and destination before the system could update itself. None of these guidelines, by the way, were arrived at after actually measuring how using navigation systems could possibly distract drivers. Instead they are based on the agency’s general testing that shows that tasks requiring 2 seconds of continuous attention are distracting, as are discontinuous tasks that in total take up 12 seconds or more of your attention.
A system that does not update continuously would be more distracting because drivers would spend more time looking at the nav screen. When a display changes continuously, there’s less need to check it frequently.
Another guideline Cunningham discovered that could change the way cars work is how text can be displayed as well as entered.
V.5.g Reading more than 30 characters (not counting punctuation marks, counting each number, no matter how many digits it contains, as one character, and counting units such as mph as just one character) of visually presented text.
Way more than 30 characters.
Cunningham points out that a standard satellite radio display of a station, show and song title can easily exceed 30 characters. The guidelines also prohibit the use of scrolling text – that would be too dynamic.
V.5.e Automatically scrolling text. The display of continuously moving text is not recommended. The visual presentation of limited amounts of static or quasi-static text is acceptable.
You also wouldn’t be able to enter an address into your nav system while driving, unless the address is fewer than six characters total.
V.5.f Manual text entry. A driver should not enter more than six button or key presses during a single task. This would include drafting text messages and keyboard-based text entry.
It seems to me that another of the guidelines, one concerning obstructed vision, might prohibit heads-up displays.
V.1 No Obstruction of View.
V.1.a No part of the physical device should, when mounted in the manner intended by the manufacturer, obstruct a driver’s field of view.
I’m not sure if the HUD qualifies as a “physical device”. It does incorporate a plastic film in the windshield made by DuPont. Though the HUD doesn’t obstruct the driver’s view in any manner that would affect safety, it does, technically, obstruct the driver’s field of view, and if enacted those guidelines will be the law.
These guidelines are meant to address changing in-car “infotainment” technologies. Come to think of it, the guideline about not pressing more than six buttons during a single task makes me think that this would regulate perhaps the oldest of infotainment technologies, the pushbutton radio.
There are more than six buttons on that electronic device. Quick, call DOT!
If they are not behind this, the cell-phone providers stand to profit. Most cell phones, even non-smart feature phones have navigation functions available by subscription. You can ban them, but since they are not built into the car they can still be used.
Buy Garmin! That stock has been getting hammered for years as everybody uses in-dash, and smartphones.
I’m usually sympathetic to safety regulations, but this is ridiculous. Particularly with my 30′ trailer in tow, the moving map along with voice prompts is, in my opinion, one of the best safety features ever. My wife is of no help and before GPS, I was constantly referring to a computer printed map or a list of route numbers and towns in my lap or taped to the dash. The information must come from somewhere.
I would not ever try to type in an address while moving, but I can do it by voice commands in my Genesis and I occasionally make use of that feature while moving if I am not in traffic.
I would understand that they would make it mandatory for the vehicle to be stationary while your enter info and make any serious inputs, but to make it this difficult would be stupid.
Meanwhile, Cirrus announced a texting feature built into the airplane (starting from 2012 models), so you could text while flying (or taxiing). The stock keyboard of the flight management computer is used for input and the navigation display split-screen shows the incoming texts. Iridium satellites are used for global texting coverage, including oceans. Shh, nobody tell Roy LaHood, or he may wet his distraction-fighting briefs.
So they remove the inbuilt but can’t regulate the portables. Net effect? Nothing. Classic gov’t idiocy.
Comment 1: The banning of Heads Up Displays would be sheer stupidity. Having owned a car with a HUD I found it one of the greatest safety features of any car I’ve driven. I’m not aware of a single car with a HUD where you can’t turn it off if you find it distracting or non-useful. I miss having a HUD in my current car, and will seek as an option in the future.
Comment 2: I do feel that car interiors and controls are becoming increasingly complicated for no good reason. I travel a lot on business and 15 years ago my “pre-flight” of a rental car to configure everything I could to my tastes might have taken 5 minutes. I’ve rented some cars where “pre-flight” has been close to an hour (largely because the configurations are not intuitive enough and there is no owner’s manual in the glove box).
Our quest for constant “entertainment” and increasing amount of data, coupled with the general hatred of driving by most Americans is resulting in car interiors designed more complicated then the deck of a space shuttle for people who can barely drive in the first place.
There has to be a happy middle — but I don’t think we need government overlords to dictate it.
How thoughtful of our minders and handlers in DC to force by law changes on the general population deemed essential for safety.
And you only thought of yourself as an adult capable of making your own decisions, operating a car as you see fit, and being responsible for yourself.
There’s a law for all that, don’t worry.
At 30 miles per hour, if one travels 88 feet in the 2 seconds the screen ‘refreshes’ and this is a problem for the driver, then a) the driver should be driving a lot slower because he/she must be aware there is an intersection around here somewhere, b)you SHOULD be looking out for the intersection, not the pretty colored screen, c) if you haven’t organized your major street turns at the last red light, then you should probably turn in your license, and d) if you are really that tied to your GPS, you should turn in your license.
Or get OnStar and let an annoying voice tell you where to drive, since you are completely incapable of reading map or the free GoogleStreets map that came with your Smartphone.
Boys and girls, a classic Catch-22 is looming and many of you haven’t figured it out yet. America’s maniacal demands for ‘freedom’ and the inalienable right to crash into any phone pole while scrutinizing a tiny color screen is admirable and all, but don’t you think that independence should include freedom FROM such devices?
I am not a member of the tin hat brigade and worry about black helicopters following people around, but I do worry that all this technology that is supposed to make our lives easier is eventually going to be made mandatory (by insurance companies and regulatory agencies), which eventually will lead to driver-less vehicles entirely.
Too stupid to park? Buy a Ford. It will park itself. Too stupid to find the way to the end of your driveway, make sure your $10,000 Kia comes standard with GPS or don’t buy one – they must be crap!
The Nanny State is alive and propped up by ambulance chaser lawyers and their sycophants. Many on TTAC foam at the mouth because certain vehicles are not available with a stick shift. Ha! Just wait until electric power steering becomes electric control steering, and a black box reports back to your insurance company when you miss a stop sign or go over the speed limit.
You think I’m joking? Insurance companies are already launching these measures as inducements for ‘possible’ premium savings.
I have Google Maps on my iPhone. I barked out highlights of turns from our hotel in Scranton to the Lincoln Tunnel, my partner scribbled them down and we got there on time and in one piece. The line at the tunnel gave us plenty of time to consider our strategy to our hotel on Broadway.
Besides, the crackheads in my neighborhood broke into my car three times because they mistook my XM antenna for a GPS antenna. Another reason not to have one.
Only problem is when you are travelling alone… Not to mention there is legislation proposed that would prevent you from using your google maps in a moving vehicle via signal jammers in all moving cars… Sometime the g’ment sucks.
Cute.
Don’t get one. Or let the crackheads have yours, if you don’t want it.
I do want one, as do many others. And until I start threatening some tax feeder that I’m gonna throw him in jail or rob him blind for not equipping his car exactly how I want to equip mine, why can he (or increasingly she) show the same courtesy?
Heck, the more I hear about the tax feeder brigade running this place, the more I wish it wasn’t so bloody hot and humid in Somalia.
While it’s demonstrated here that there are potential unintended consequences, I agree with the spirit of the guidelines. Nav does NOT need a moving map; I get along just fine with the secondary information display in my cluster that gives me a simple infographic and voice instructions when a turn is approaching. I’m also in agreement that more than 30 characters in a line of text (which is about the width of a modern infotainment screen at a widely-readable text size) is more than enough to describe a track or other information in detail.
I’m also in complete agreement about limiting haptic input to determine addresses or other instructions to the infotainment unit. My nav’s touchscreen breaks Fitts’ law with its requirement for me to punch virtual buttons using fine motor control with my arm extended. Voice input or cursor control a la MMI/COMAND/iDrive should be a standard.
Overall, the money and time spent legislating distracted driving might better be directed toward real driver education. Closed circuits, high speeds, all designed to demonstrate car control and situational awareness. If people can get a license by answering a multiple-choice test and parallel-parking in a 30 MPH zone, it stands to reason that many of them will have no idea how to cope with highway driving.
Agreed. And just because the map wouldn’t move in less than 2 seconds, doesn’t mean the real time voice telling you turn now, wouldn’t update real time.
Recalculating…..
Oh, the horror! (/sarcasm)
I don’t see how any of these rules will have any impact on reading a map before getting into the car. Maybe more people should try that.
I have no problem with these rules. I also believe that nav systems will only be minimally affected by these rules.
Ever try to read a paper map while driving by yourself? You clamp it to the rim of the steering wheel and glance down at it once in a while. The GPS is a big safety improvement over this or trying to remember your turns. I keep mine mounted to the top of the windshield to the right of the rear view mirror, where it does not obstruct the driver`s vision. Ehen you first get a GPS you o tend to stare at it too long. Then you learn to only glance at it.
Frontline’s “Digital Nation” addresses some very interesting brain applications. The brain is capable of amazing things if it’s trained to do them. When we use technology instead, it loses that capability. Average people used to memorize entire books–the Iliad, Beowulf, the Koran (and sometimes after only a few hearings)–but after reading/writing became common, they can hardly memorize an entire paragraph.
I don’t use nav nor a map while driving. I memorize the details, including street views from Google before leaving. (Details I can’t memorize, like a specific address or gate codes, I check after I’ve stopped.) It isn’t hard at all, unless you’ve never trained yourself to do it. If I did use nav, I would probably have a much harder time doing this.
As I read it, this does not affect small handheld GPS devices. Since the premiums charged for the built-ins are monstrous, I am not sure I care.
I think that’s a pretty bad basis for not caring. You really think that this wouldn’t spread? Particularly not only would a precedent be set, but all the auto manufacturers would then lobby to make things “fair” by extending this to the portable units and phones.
Of course, for people who believe that these rules are reasonable, that’s a different matter.
You should have kept scrolling:
“Since our voluntary NHTSA Guidelines are not a Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard, the degree to which in-vehicle devices meet the specified criteria would not be assessed in the context of a formal compliance program.”
If the site still had HTML, I would have bolded the word “voluntary.”
A guideline is a guideline, not a requirement. And at this point, these are proposed guidelines, so you can bet that the automakers and other concerned business interests will chime in during the comment period. Let the negotiations begin.
That isn’t to say that these sorts of guidelines won’t necessarily influence what ends up in cars, but they won’t be mandatory.
If there’s no chance that they’ll be mandatory, why have them in the first place?
Yes, they are “nonbinding,voluntary guidelines”, but just how do these guidelines end up “discouraging the introduction of excessively distracting devices in vehicles” if there’s no chance of them becoming law?
Is it the proper role of government to issue voluntary guidelines in the first place? Either regulate or not, but don’t pretend that there isn’t a mailed fist inside the velvet glove. The concept of a government agency that indeed has regulatory power issuing supposedly voluntary guidelines is troubling.
“just how do these guidelines end up “discouraging the introduction of excessively distracting devices in vehicles” if there’s no chance of them becoming law?”
Your experience with government seems to be limited to making theoretical rants about it on the internet, along with the occasional visit to the DMV.
Maybe you should get some real world experience. If you did business with government, then you would know that a lot of these things really aren’t required, but are just suggested and remain that way. They become points to negotiate.
Chances are the automakers will haggle over this, then follow some of these guidelines but not others. NHTSA already gave the industry a big hint: these won’t become part of the FMVSS if they can informally get some of what they want.
GOVERNMENT IS TOO DAMN BIG.
The only reason they are doing this is to in some way tax the manufacturers. I refuse to believe there is an imminent threat from Navigation displays. My cars allow me to use Nav while in Motion and i rarely use it, but, when I do, I’ve never hit anyone.
Oh no, with a static display the driver will have to pay attention and think where he/she is going! Oh no, someone call apologetic journos! This must be stopped!
A map updating every two seconds would likely be more distracting than one that moved in real time. With a real time map a quick glance will show you your relative rate of approach to the next turn, with one updating at set intervals people will just stare at the screen until the next update.
I don’t see what the problem with inputting your destination before driving is. Any time I’ve used a navigation system that’s exactly what I do, and if my plans change and I need to go somewhere else, there’s almost always a parking lot or shoulder to pull off to to accomplish the task.
I can’t think of anything on current systems that would need to be done while driving that requires more than 6 button presses. Even in the critically-maligned initial version of MyFord Touch there was nothing that would need to be done while driving that would take more than two or three hits on the screen, while most things only took one or two.
If you could only tell that MyTouch has accepted the touch-screen input so that you can stop jabbing the buttons before you get to six …
The lag was a major problem with the first software release. It does make a ‘beep’ sound when you hit a button, and now with the new software you instantly see a visual response on the screen as well – virtual LEDs next to the onscreen buttons that change just like when you hit a physical button.
Still not as effective as real buttons, though.
One thing to remember here, these are PROPOSED, which means they are not set in stone yet and thus, I’d suspect these will be looked at and a lot of the more superfluous proposals will be struck out along with others being rewritten.
One proposal is to ban all dynamic displays, while I agree, for MOST things but NAV should be exempted for reasons stated already and that be the ONLY exemption and make it a requirement that more functions be made available through voice commands, such as music searches etc through a common file structure and file type protocol so no matter what car you are driving, be it a rental or no, that if you have music on a USB thumb drive, you know it’ll work, no matter the vehicle.
I DO agree that you need to be parked, car in either neutral or park (pref in park) before you can manually enter addresses into your navigation system or require voice commands and voice read back of directions so you can listen and get to where you are going in a non familiar city.
That said, I would love it if people would not rely too much on NAV systems and watch their surroundings so as to know if something’s not right so people don’t end up in say, a river (which has happened).
I also agree that Bluetooth should be made standard in ALL cars along with steering wheel controls.
So let me reiterate, these appear to be proposals and thus not all of the suggestions put forth will make it and I will bet NHTSA will get a major set back on a good chunk of their proposal as they are deemed as going too far and/or not dealing with reality or practicality.
A group of my coworkers were nearly killed because a driver was paying attention to a nav screen instead of the road. The sad thing is that it was that the driver had driven that route several times and didn’t even need a nav.
IMO, a nav screen that is reasonably zoomed is quasi-static because it isn’t obvious that it’s moving. I expect such displays to be unaffected by these rules. Rather, I expect to see a definition of rate of change to be added.
I’d be ok with this if LEO’s had to comply with the same law. Talk about distracted driving! They have enough bells, whistles, laptops, radios, etc that it’s a wonder they can even see outside their cruiser!
I do 30,000 miles per year. I’d be very unhappy with a nav system that required me to put the vehicle in “park” to change things.
I don’t need yet another “load the British version software” or “clip the orange wire” mod due to the nanny state.
Idiots… A continuously updating map is the best way to REDUCE driver attention to the display. If it only updates every 2 seconds then a driver needs to take their eye off the road and look at the display, waiting for it to update and give them the information they wanted from it, before they look back up at the road.
I think Mazda has the right idea in the 2010-2012 ‘3, with the tiny squished nav screen. It’s less risky to check it, since your line of sight are much closer to looking straight ahead; and since you can’t see a whole lot in it, you’ll probably just listen to the voice commands instead.
http://www.autoguide.com/gallery/gallery.php/v/main/reviews/mazda/2010-mazda-mazda3+5-doors-grand-touring-review/2010+MAZDA3+5-nav-info_03.jpg.html