I said people need to
navigate while driving, which is almost a tautology. That is to say, while I’m driving I need to know where I’m going. Sometimes I already know from memory, sometimes I’m consulting an external source.
Whether that external source is a sticky note on the steering wheel, a phone, audible prompts, or a big touchscreen in the center of the vehicle (TM3), the driver is going to decide which to use based on the options available to them at the time.
What the driver is not going to do is pull over at an exit to stop the car and check if that was the exit they were supposed to take, and then get back on the highway and keep going.
The absolutist stance does not actually increase safety. In the absolutist stance, well people don’t need to drive at all. To design safe systems in the real world that save lives you need to provide an alternative that is both safer and as easy to use. Because a safer alternative that drivers don’t use by choice because it’s too annoying or inconvenient doesn’t actually improve overall fleet safety.
Obviously when you operate a vehicle you don’t always just look straight out in front of you. You check your mirrors. You check your blind spots. You maintain situational awareness and do that safely by planning where you focus your attention from one moment to the next. Screens are obviously not “out”, nor is it correct to say that looking at a screen while driving is unsafe. Instruments, whether for navigation or simply indicating current vehicle status such as fuel, speed, lights, etc. are an integral part of driving and digital instruments are not necessarily less safe than analog, and can potentially be more safe.
And so returning to my original point, in my personal experience, the large touchscreen in the TM3 is ideally suited for safe navigation, and improves safety when navigating particularly on an unknown route, by presenting crucial information in extremely visible and usable form, and allowing me to configure and interact with the system naturally and efficiently while I proceed along my route.
