Car manufacturers, please hire this guy to build your interfaces. He gets it. Touch screens must not be used for controls you are going to frequently operate while driving the car, it's maximum unsafe.
I wish that was the unsafest thing car manufacturers did.
Jeep, for example, has just discovered a predilection for random full-screen alerts with a blaring alarm sound, if, for example, they magically inferred there's a tow-truck somewhere. (There's about a 50% chance you'll encounter a tow truck in the next 10 minutes, at best)
This is great if, say, you're three hours into a night drive, all alone on the road, and suddenly ALARM THE WORLD IS ENDING.
I actively hate car manufacturers. They should not be allowed to use touch screens. Even if they could be useful - they have repeatedly proven they are too stupid to use them well.
I assume it is because tow trucks are large, and will be slow moving when they merge/tow. I can totally imagine the meeting that took that argument and lead to that feature.
But I'm fairly certain that if you're so distracted you don't see the giant tow truck, a message on your entertainment screen isn't going to help.
I feel like car touch screens are designed like those 3D hologram interfaces in Minority Report: they look really cool and you want them, but they're entirely impractical in day-to-day operation. If car manufacturers are optimizing for cars looking cool in the dealership, whiz-bang touchscreens win over boring physical controls.
