Anything that takes attention away from driving increases danger.
Are they more dangerous than older interfaces? My feeling is overwhelmingly yes, but I would be willing to see a study or hear arguments that some touchscreens are an improvement. A touch interface is fine (not great) as long as it never changes. As soon as you have to search for a control or menu you are dividing your attention away from driving.
parking takes attention away from driving, and as a result the danger drops.
Parking is a subset of “driving”. When you are parking you are also still driving by most legal and practical definitions.
Once you have completed parking you are no longer driving, you are parked, that is the point at which the danger drops.
Parking itself though, is still driving, and is also when a significant number of minor and major collisions occur. Parking is so dangerous that we design many parking areas specifically to be durable to minor impacts as well as protect from parking mishaps. Bollards, curbs, concrete barriers, planters and other features are all placed to help lessen the dangers of parking.
For reference, in the US, for just reported vehicle accidents per the National Safety Council:
- 20% of all accidents occur in parking lots
- 500 people per year are killed in parking lots
- 60k injuries per year in parking lots
Given the low speeds inherent to parking lots, and the extremely low share of miles and time spent there, it is a remarkably dangerous place. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out; parking areas are by definition where humans and heavy machinery operate in the exact same spaces.