FleetCheck has warned that fleets should avoid cars where all vehicle controls are in a touchscreen, due to safety concerns, as drivers are required to take their attention away from the road to use them.
The company advised fleets to remove cars with no physical controls for functions such as climate controls from their choice lists.
iPhone designer Jony Ive, who also designed the interior of the upcoming Ferrari Luce, said to Autocar that touchscreens were the ‘wrong technology’ to use for a car’s primary controls, as drivers are required to look away from the road to operate them.
FleetCheck warned that voice control options were not a solution, as studies have shown that they are mentally distracting, and often do not work well.
Peter Golding, CEO at FleetCheck, said: “There is now overwhelming evidence that touchscreen controls represent a serious risk, with a whole slew of credible studies showing they are distracting for drivers and interrupt concentration to an unacceptable degree.
“We’re probably already seeing a general move by manufacturers away from placing everything on touchscreens towards a more hybrid approach where at least major controls such as heating have physical knobs and buttons, something being encouraged by Euro NCAP, among others.
“However, there remain some popular company cars commonly included on choice lists that are touchscreen-only and it is probably time for fleets to consider whether this is the right thing to do?
“These vehicles are inherently risky and there are plenty of alternatives that provide safer access to vehicle controls.
“Several studies show voice control is probably less dangerous than touchscreen use but is still highly mentally distracting for the driver.
“Anyway, it often serves as a general annoyance simply because many systems don’t work that well.
“There’s no evidence of which we are aware that advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) are making vehicles less safe – quite the opposite – but a situation has been created almost inadvertently where many drivers now spend a lot of time jabbing at touchscreens to turn off speed or lane departure warnings.
“The car has potentially become quite stressful by design, which is clearly not desirable. It does perhaps feel as though we need to spend more time considering the human element.”
