More than half of British drivers wish car manufacturers still used physical dials instead of touchscreens, according to a new survey by Scrap Car Comparison.
The survey questioned 1,000 UK drivers with cars fitted with a touchscreen and found that 51 per cent wanted a return to physical buttons, while 54 per cent said touchscreens make it harder to complete simple tasks quickly.
Entering a sat nav destination was rated the most distracting touchscreen task, cited by 41 per cent of drivers. Changing the music followed at 29 per cent, with answering or making a phone call and adjusting the temperature each cited by 26 per cent.
"If you can, handing the task to a passenger is honestly one of the best things you can do," Scrap Car Comparison advised. "If a task can wait, or someone else in the car can do it, that's a much safer choice than trying to do it yourself at speed."
Touchscreens influencing buying decisions
The findings suggest touchscreens are shaping purchasing habits as well as driving habits. Forty-two per cent of respondents said they had avoided buying or leasing a car because its main controls were only accessible via a touchscreen, and 25 per cent said they chose a different model or brand entirely because of it.
Swerving, near-misses and collisions
The survey also pointed to dangerous consequences when drivers are distracted by their screens. Twenty-one per cent of respondents said they had swerved to correct their lane position, while 13 per cent reported a near-miss with another vehicle, cyclist or pedestrian.
"More seriously still, 11% have been in a minor collision, and one in 10 drivers have been in a more serious collision as a result," Scrap Car Comparison said.
Experts call for a return to physical controls
The survey comes amid a growing call from experts for carmakers to ditch unnecessary touchscreen tech and return to a traditional dashboard with physical buttons. Critics argue that touchscreen interfaces require drivers to look away from the road for unacceptably long periods to control basic functions, which may be tolerable for features such as reversing cameras but becomes a serious problem when drivers must click through a menu simply to turn on the windscreen wipers.
Dr Milad Haghani, a safety expert from the University of Melbourne, told the Daily Mail that this was "the dangerous combination and a recipe for significant levels of distraction."
