Automakers have turned dashboards into glossy slabs of glass, inviting drivers to swipe, scroll and tap their way through every trip. The result is a quiet safety crisis, as touchscreens and constant multitasking pull attention away from the road at the very moment traffic is getting faster and more complex. Instead of simplifying driving, the digital cockpit is training people to behave like they are on a smartphone, not behind the wheel.
Researchers, safety agencies and even some drivers are now warning that this design trend is colliding with the hard limits of human attention. The evidence is piling up that modern interfaces and the culture of doing “just one more thing” while driving are making crashes more likely, not less, even as cars add more advanced technology.
The hard limits of multitasking behind the wheel
For years, drivers have insisted they are “good multitaskers,” able to juggle navigation, messages and playlists without missing a beat. Cognitive science says otherwise. Human brains do not truly perform multiple demanding tasks at once, they switch rapidly between them, losing time and accuracy with every flip. In a widely shared explanation, Jan uses the image of a flashlight beam to show how attention can only illuminate one spot at a time, and when that beam jumps between tasks, performance on each one suffers.
That basic limitation becomes deadly in a moving vehicle, where a fraction of a second of inattention can erase the margin for error. When drivers try to manage a text, adjust climate settings or scroll through menus while traffic flows around them, they are forcing their brains into constant task switching instead of sustained focus on the road. The more confident someone feels about their ability to multitask, the more likely they are to overload themselves, a pattern that matches what Jan describes in the video about multitasking and attention.
Touchscreens turn every adjustment into a cognitive task
Older cars relied on knobs, stalks and physical buttons that drivers could operate by feel, often without glancing away from the windshield. The shift to large central displays has changed that muscle memory into a visual puzzle. Instead of reaching for a familiar dial, drivers must locate a small icon, interpret a menu and confirm a selection, all while the vehicle is in motion. That sequence is not just a quick tap, it is a chain of cognitive steps that competes directly with scanning mirrors and monitoring speed.
Researchers at the University of Washington captured this effect by measuring how drivers coped with in-car displays while performing a memory task. In the UW study described by Kurt Schlosser, participants showed clear signs of increased mental load, including changes in pupil diameter and electrodermal activity, when they had to remember information and use the screen while driving. The more the display demanded from their memory and vision, the more their driving performance degraded, underscoring that every extra tap has a cost.
Evidence that touchscreens can be worse than driving drunk
Some of the most alarming data compares touchscreen distraction to classic impairments like alcohol. In one analysis highlighted in a video titled “Touchscreens Will KILL You!”, Aug walks through Studies that found drivers using complex in-car displays reacted more slowly than those who were legally drunk. The claim is not that touchscreens and alcohol are identical risks, but that the delay in reaction time from interface distraction can exceed the delay caused by intoxication at the legal limit.
That comparison should reset how casually people treat “quick” interactions with their dashboards. If a driver would never accept the risk of getting behind the wheel after several drinks, it makes little sense to shrug off a design that routinely pulls their eyes and mind away from the road for several seconds at a time. The video’s argument, grounded in those Studies on touchscreens and reaction time, frames the modern cockpit as a kind of sanctioned impairment, built into the vehicle itself rather than poured into a glass.
New research shows how drivers trade safety for screen time
Recent experiments have gone beyond simple reaction tests to examine how drivers juggle competing demands from the road and the screen. In one project, New research asked participants to manage cognitive tasks, operate a touchscreen and keep a simulated car on course. As the mental demands increased, drivers had to decide whether to focus on the display or on driving, and many chose to complete the on-screen task even when it meant drifting out of their lane.
Reporting on this work notes that when drivers were given more to remember, they felt more rushed and overloaded, yet they still tried to keep up with the interface. According to a summary that described how Participants reacted as memory demands increased, every measure confirmed that mental load rose, from self reports to physiological signals. A related account of the same line of work explains that New research explored how drivers traded off between cognitive tasks and the screen, and that performance on the display declined when they tried to prioritize driving. The core finding is stark: people are not good at balancing both, yet car design keeps asking them to.
Touchscreens, distraction and the broader crash toll
Touchscreen distraction is unfolding against a backdrop of stubbornly high crash numbers linked to divided attention. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Overview of Distracted driving reports that distracted driving is dangerous, claiming 3,275 lives in 2023. That figure captures all forms of distraction, from texting to eating, but it underscores how lethal it is when drivers let anything compete with the task of driving.
Within that broader category, texting remains the most alarming behavior, because it combines visual, manual and cognitive distraction in a single act. In practice, many in-car touch interactions mimic the same pattern: eyes drop to the screen, hands leave the wheel and the mind shifts to a secondary task. NHTSA stresses that safe driving has your full attention, a standard that is hard to reconcile with dashboards that invite constant tapping. The agency’s warning on Distracted driving and the 3,275 deaths should be read as a direct indictment of any design that normalizes multitasking at highway speeds.
How the auto industry fell in love with glass dashboards
Automakers did not adopt touchscreens by accident. They saw an opportunity to mimic smartphones, reduce hardware costs and keep vehicles feeling modern through software updates. As one legal analysis framed it, the question “Are Cars with Touchscreens More Dangerous?” sits alongside a clear trend: The Rise of In Car Touchscreens has been driven by consumer expectations for connectivity and sleek design. Large displays let manufacturers consolidate controls, add new features over time and market their cars as rolling computers.
That same analysis notes that experts have raised concerns about whether these interfaces compromise road safety, especially when critical functions like climate control or wiper speed are buried in menus. The piece on Are Cars with Touchscreens More Dangerous and The Rise of In Car Touchscreens points out that what looks like progress in design can, in practice, lengthen the time drivers spend looking away from the road. In other words, the industry’s aesthetic and marketing priorities have outpaced its willingness to confront the safety trade offs.
Design choices that quietly raise the risk
Not all touchscreens are equally dangerous. The details of layout, button size and menu depth matter enormously for how long a driver’s eyes are off the road. A detailed explainer on the evolution of in-car interfaces notes that having more digital controls gives designers flexibility, but it also encourages them to pack in more apps and widgets. By relying on mental models and without the movement restriction of indirect controllers, tertiary tasks are performed significantly more often, because the barrier to interacting with the system is so low.
That same explainer warns that when everything is software, there is a temptation to keep adding features, from weather overlays to social media integrations, each one another reason to glance down. The discussion of the rise of touch screens in cars makes clear that digital controls help cars stay up to date longer, but they also normalize a level of interaction that would have seemed absurd when radios had two knobs. When drivers are offered endless customization and information, many will use it, even when they should not.
What the latest “deadly risk” studies reveal about real driving
Several recent reports have tried to translate lab findings into more realistic driving scenarios. One widely cited study, described in multiple news accounts, set up a driving simulator where people had to keep a car centered while using a touchscreen with different levels of complexity. As tasks grew harder, drivers’ lane keeping deteriorated and their ability to respond to sudden events dropped. The study’s authors concluded that touchscreens can create a deadly risk when they demand too much attention at the wrong moment.
Coverage of this work emphasizes that the danger is not just the time spent looking away, but the mental residue of the task. After finishing a complex on-screen action, drivers often needed extra time to fully re-engage with the road. One report explained that New research explored how drivers traded off between cognitive tasks, driving and using the touch screen, and that the more demanding the screen interaction, the more driving performance suffered. Another account of the same study noted that designers might want to make bigger buttons, but that does not solve the underlying problem when the system still asks drivers to remember sequences and navigate deep menus.
Drivers, laws and the slow policy response
While engineers debate interface design, drivers are already living with the consequences, and some are pushing back. On enthusiast forums, owners of vehicles like the BMW X5 have argued over whether central control touch screens are a distraction or a necessary modern feature. One contributor pointed out that The German law that bans texting while driving actually forbids “operating an electronic device while driving a vehicle”, a standard that could easily apply to many in-car touch interactions if enforced strictly.
That legal language highlights how far regulation has to catch up. Many jurisdictions wrote their distracted driving rules with phones in mind, not built in displays that ship with the car. Yet the behavior looks similar: eyes down, fingers tapping, attention split. The forum discussion about The German law that bans texting while driving shows that some drivers are already aware that their factory installed screens may fall into a legal gray area. Policymakers will have to decide whether to treat those screens like any other electronic device, or carve out exceptions that risk undermining the spirit of the law.
Rethinking what “smart” driving should look like
As evidence mounts, the question is no longer whether touchscreens and multitasking affect driving, but what to do about it. Some safety advocates argue for a return to physical controls for core functions like climate, lights and wipers, reserving screens for navigation and information that can be safely glanced at when stopped. Others push for smarter software that locks out nonessential features when the car is moving, or that simplifies the interface dynamically based on speed and conditions. The studies showing that drivers struggle to balance cognitive tasks and driving suggest that any solution must reduce the need for memory and decision making while in motion.
Automakers, for their part, are experimenting with voice control, head up displays and steering wheel buttons to offload some of the interaction away from the central screen. Yet these tools only help if they are designed to minimize cognitive load rather than add new layers of complexity. A detailed account of the touchscreen risk noted that some systems already try to enlarge buttons or streamline menus, as in the report that described how designers “want to make bigger buttons” to reduce error. That same report on the car study that warned touch screens create deadly risk makes clear that interface tweaks alone will not fix a system that still encourages drivers to treat the dashboard like a tablet. If safety is the goal, the industry will have to accept that the smartest car is the one that demands less from the person in the driver’s seat, not more.
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