Are touchscreens in cars dangerous?

Yeah, the passenger seat is a problem. I've been very annoyed with my phone before for locking out when my car is in motion--even when I'm not the one handling the phone.

What phone doesn’t let you operate it while in a moving car? I’ve never heard of this.

Modern mazdas are one example - the touchscreen locks out above 5 miles per hour.

This is only feasible because the physical controls are excellent, and you can basically accomplish anything except typing an address or a song name without the touchscreen as input.

I have a new Mazda with CarPlay, you can touch the phone at any time? Or are you referring to the "extra" touchscreen on some models in addition to the control knob.

iOS has had this feature for several versions now, I think it predates focus modes even. But today it lives under that umbrella as the Driving focus, which can activate automatically based on certain kinds of detected motion.

I'm pretty sure no phone does this on its own - if it did, people on public transport would have complaints.

It is probably a setting on your phone (driving mode, perhaps) or a setting when you pair it with your car.

Not necessarily a 'phone' but an 'app'; Here WeGo often won't let you pick a route for a destination you looked up if you're moving... I say 'often' because it seems to have a mood where sometimes it works but other times it literally shows a sort of 'cannot do this while vehicle is in motion' blocker...

The newest CX-5, their best selling car, abandons the knob, if that’s what you’re referring to.

Supposedly most buyers in fact, did not like the knob.

This seems to follow other manufacturers that formerly had knob based controls but similarly abandoned them.

For what it’s worth, my phone (iPhone SE 3) DOES do the lock up when I’m on the public bus, requiring me to tap “I’m not driving.”

You literally can turn this off in the settings. You have it set to enable driving mode automatically.

I had that on for 1 or 2 years and given up. Thanks for reminding me, it's a nightmare that makes using your phone less safe.

That is so sad. The knob on my CX30 is such a favourite feature for me that I want to rule out car models that don't have a physical input in that location.

Sad to hear that I'm in a minority for loving that input.

My 2025 CX50 has excellent input controls. It's almost like using a mouse on the center console. Once you realize the home, back button, scroll and enter button are all within a fingers reach, it's very intuitive. It took about five minutes to master it when I first got the car and I realized how it worked.

On my car, the touchscreen only works when Android Auto or Apple CarPlay are enabled. I'm assuming all newer models are the same. There are lots of audio control built in the steering wheel too. I don't find any of it distracting.

You can actually make such 3D display that has left and right eyeball locations configured to correspond to left and right seats, and blank the driver's side channel so that the driver can't interact but the passenger could. It was briefly tried on few Japanese head units during 2000s, and then abandoned. Some Volkswagen-Audi cars emulate this feature for the optional secondary infotainment unit using a static privacy filter.

Paired with the car.

I recently discovered that iOS supports both: you can have it detect driving by Bluetooth pairing or by motion (or disable it).

I wonder if it's buyers (which I would find mildly surprising) or potential buyers (which wouldn't surprise me at all)?

My 2012 Range Rover has this to allow the passenger to watch TV while the driver still sees the normal menu. Works surprisingly well.