Are touchscreens in cars dangerous?

> An analysis published in 2020 by the Transport Research Laboratory, a British organisation, found that touchscreens impaired a driver’s reaction time more than driving over the legal alcohol limit.

The question isn't whether they're dangerous, anymore.

The question is, when is safety legislation going to be passed that prevents them from being used for any routine adjustments while driving. I.e. windshield wipers, AC, change volume, skip to next track, etc.

Like it's fine if you still use them to input a GPS destination, change long-term car settings, connect a Bluetooth device, etc.

But we need to separate out the actions routinely used during driving and legislate physical controls. Why is there not legislation for this already?

You know, seatbelts were also once optional, and something like less than 10% of people got them with their cars.

When it comes to safety regulations, it's definitely not "if you don't like it don't buy it".

Also, if you're distracted and get in a crash, you're not the only one who dies. It's your passengers and the people in the car you collide with that might die as well.

> It's your passengers and the people in the car you collide with that might die as well.

The people within automobiles are the people who I am least concerned about since they are encased by a machine that is engineered to ensure their safety. It's people outside of vehicles I'm most concerned about. Their only protection is their own wits.

Your fear seems to be unfounded if we can extrapolate data for Turkey: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Comparison-of-drivers-pa...

15k drivers and passengers dead for 3k pedestrians; 1.3M injured drivers/passengers for 170k pedestrians.

The only figure that supports your fear is that out of all injuries, 1.8% pedestrians die, whereas it's "only" 1.2% for those "encased in a machine".

But absolute numbers tell a different, more important story: ratio of deaths is 1:5, and 1:7.5 for injuries (meaning, they much less likely to be in a traffic accident).

Your data doesn't prove anything in this context. While traffic accidents involving pedestrians will involve two parties (the pedestrian and the motorist), a motor vehicle may involve just the motorist. It also fails to normalize the data in a meaningful context. There are many areas where people would either be foolhardy to walk, or it is outright illegal to walk. That forces people to spend more time in a vehicle (so the absolute numbers are meaningless). Places where pedestrians do not go tend to have higher speed traffic (increasing the risk to motorists).

For your numbers to be meaningful, you need to compare like to like. To say that pedestrians are less likely to be in a traffic accident you need to compare hours driving to hours walking in areas with traffic. Fatality rates are more of a judgement call. Distracted driving on a highway is going to increase the fatality rate for motorists (higher speeds) while having little impact on pedestrians (the ratio of motorists to pedestrians is much higher). Distracted driving on urban streets is going to decrease the fatality rate for motorists (lower speeds), while it almost certainly represents the fatality rate for pedestrians as you presented it. Ignoring the environment is valid if you are only concerned about the impact on other motorists. Considering the environment is important if you want to make meaninful comparisons to pedestrian fatalities (or injuries).