Touch screens in motor vehicles

[Tangled Metal]

Mobile phones that stop working if your moving? This idea. It'll stop pedestrians walking into the road while on a call. Just one problem. It'll be a culture change. We'll no longer be able to call it a mobile phone!

I always have my phone on vibrate only( with a screen notification too ). Works fine I can feel the vibrate or hear it if on a table at home. Yet so many have loud ringtones in any location. People of the UK, you don't need to be picking up calls every instant and have everyone hear it. Discrete use of mobiles and non use in cars in motion should be taught at school to the next generation before their parents ignorance rubs off on them.

Old hat. I have a smart watch that I get my texts on. Phone in pocket and watch on vibrate. A quick click of the wrist and I see the text, email, WhatsApp, call notification. I can the choose to get the phone out or not. All the while my heart rate, steps and floors climbed are being recorded.

It's not all there as tech but it was an early model. I'll need to get a better one when they improve a bit more.

Dave Gorman the comedian did a funny bit on phone use in his family. Younger gen heavily use phone and social media. He generation doesn't. Then in his family the older generation (his parents). Are also into phone use and social media. He said it was because the grandparents wanted to communicate with the younger generation and the mobile phone and social media is the only way. So they've learnt to use it too and have gotten heavily into it even among their own generation.

My parents are heavily into WhatsApp at times. Facebook family around the world too. Skype is something my inlaws wouldn't cope without. So in our family it's like that Dave Gorman said too.

[thirdcrank]

... s a whole plethora of pushbuttons to control heaven knows what..... Indeed I don't even know what some of them do, without looking up in the handbook.

Most of them are of course strictly "do not touch" when driving, I leave well alone until I'm stopped somewhere. Apart from some essential ones like heater, hazards, and rear demist, of course. Most other stuff is of course controlled from the steering column stalks. ....

The problem arises if you drive a number of cars at short notice. The counsel of wisdom is to familiarise yourself with the controls before setting off, but with a couple of hundred pages of handbook - not always there in somebody else's car or a pool vehicle - it's easier said than done. IMO, the hazards should be in a standard position; VW used to put them on top of the steering column, perhaps they still do. Designers seem to vie to produce the most obscure way to operate rear wipers. Heaters seem to have gone barmy. We've recently bought a new Skoda Fabia, hardly a top-end car, but the A/C seems to jhave a mind of it's own. I think part of this is because manufacturers have decided to defy physics by using cold air for demisting. OK, after a fashion while it's switched on, but cold glass is soom misted up again when it's switched off. And while I'm no, when face-level vents were introduced, they directed fresh air onto the driver's mush. Not any more, what safety benefit is there to blowing warm air into a driver's face?

[Mick F]

Mobile phones that stop working if your moving? This idea. It'll stop pedestrians walking into the road while on a call.

I wouldn't vote for that.

You could be wanting to dial 999 whilst running away, or even driving with some threat following you.

[Cyril Haearn]

Mobile phones that stop working if your moving? This idea. It'll stop pedestrians walking into the road while on a call.

I wouldn't vote for that.

You could be wanting to dial 999 whilst running away, or even driving with some threat following you.

The phones could surely be set so that only 999 could be dialled when moving, +1!

[Tangled Metal]

Dialling while running away? Hmmm. Running due your life and using a phone. IMHO it would be one of the other.

Of course like lock screen dialling of emergency numbers I'm sure there's a way round your concerns.

[Cunobelin]

I have kitted out the Trike.......

[Cunobelin]

Mobile phones that stop working if your moving? This idea. It'll stop pedestrians walking into the road while on a call.

I wouldn't vote for that.

You could be wanting to dial 999 whilst running away, or even driving with some threat following you.

It is interesting that Waze, one of the Apps that shows routes has a function where you have to tell it that you are a passenger before it will allow you to interact.... if you use it whilst driving, you have made the choice to do so.

Apple now has the "Do not disturb while driving" setting that automatically disables calls and notifications when on teh move. Again you can choose to disable it and use the phone whilst driving

In both cases it would be an intersting legal case if you were involved in an accident, where do you stand if the phone had been overridden to be usable?


Of course it needs to be overridden as a choice because passenger use is another matter. When travelling as a passenger I use the phone to avoid traffic, look out for places to have a break, or even places to have lunch. We have found some wonderful pubs and cafes only a few minutes away form a Motorway and the overpriced fast "food"

Equally I while away my time on busses and trains reading or watching videos....not possible if the drive functions cannot be overridden

[Mick F]

Last car, and this one, has buttons on the steering wheel to operate the bluetooth-connected phone and it overrides the radio/sound system.

The car we have now, needs one button to press to select the last call, and another button to connect. If you want a different number, you have to scroll through the options on the touch-screen well away from the line driving line of sight.

Last car, you had all the options you needed on-screen in the middle of the speedometer dial. Far better system IMO.

[old_windbag]

Dave Gorman the comedian did a funny bit on phone use in his family. Younger gen heavily use phone and social media. He generation doesn't. Then in his family the older generation (his parents). Are also into phone use and social media. He said it was because the grandparents wanted to communicate with the younger generation and the mobile phone and social media is the only way. So they've learnt to use it too and have gotten heavily into it even among their own generation.

I know OAP's who do a lot of facebook and whatsapp for those reasons. They've said with all the family all over the place it means they can send messages to all at any time. I was non-plussed as to why they needed to be in contact with each other as much. But thats where I'm different as I've never had to be in contact like that, I'm independent. I've known many who would only move a few streets from their parents( and not because they were infirm ), very strange. Also at this time of year I've encountered relatives who felt "put out" by others not having christmas dinner at their house? What. You don't need to be like the waltons to enjoy christmas day. Perhaps this is why a lot of tech alienates me, because it is focused on social networking and dare I say it shallow communication that I'm happy to live without.

I would like to see fully black boxed cars for use in speeding prosecution and accident investigation, perhaps road charging. I'd also like to see all of us microchipped with full health details, ID, perhaps even criminal record contained. This would be useful to health professionals if we fall ill in a public place. The other data perhaps could be used to notify if we are in certain places we shouldn't be and alert the authorities. Big brother perhaps but in a good way for the benefit of society and the disadvantage of the criminally minded.

[Mistik-ka]

what safety benefit is there to blowing warm air into a driver's face?

When it's really cold in my part of the world it prevents your eyelashes from freezing together and leaving you blind.

About "cold air for demisting": this one confused me in our most recent Volvo. Our mechanic ("Volvo Guru" as it says on his business card) explained that at its maximum setting the demister runs the air through the air conditioning system … which dries the air before it is heated and blown onto the windscreen. (Or maybe it's warmed first and then air-conditioned; as it seems to function well I don't think about it any more )

[Cyril Haearn]

what safety benefit is there to blowing warm air into a driver's face?

When it's really cold in my part of the world it prevents your eyelashes from freezing together and leaving you blind.

About "cold air for demisting": this one confused me in our most recent Volvo. Our mechanic ("Volvo Guru" as it says on his business card) explained that at its maximum setting the demister runs the air through the air conditioning system … which dries the air before it is heated and blown onto the windscreen. (Or maybe it's warmed first and then air-conditioned; as it seems to function well I don't think about it any more )

Prynhawn da MK

I used to like volvos cos they were boring, I fear they are exciting now
Question is, does one have to run the engine for a while before driving off if it is -30° outside, or does everyone have a heated garage?
In Germany it is illegal to leave the engine running to warm up AND illegal to drive if the windows are misted up
Have to go cycling instead I guess

[Bonefishblues]

Many cars run pre-heaters in the parkiest parts aiui.

[Mistik-ka]

Question is, does one have to run the engine for a while before driving off if it is -30° outside, or does everyone have a heated garage?

P'nawn da bryn.

Heated garages are very pleasant indeed. But we don't have one.

At -20º we have the block heater plugged in so the motor is warm enough to start. (Memories of the farm in the early 1950s — no electricity, so if the car was required my dad would light a wood fire under the tractor's engine until it was warm enough to turn over, then start the tractor and use it to tow the car until it would start. So we just used horses and sleigh in the depths of winter.)

At -30) we drive slowly out to the road (a couple of hundred metres) by which time the defroster is keeping the already-scraped windscreen from frosting over. By the time we reach the main road (another kilometre) the electric seat heaters are beginning to do their job (ahhhhhhhh!) and the tires have warmed up to the point where they no longer have a flat spot where they spent the night pressed against the cold garage floor.

At -40º if we have any choice in the matter we stay home, dress warmly, and walk as far as the firewood pile fore an extra armload of fuel. If we must go somewhere in the car I run out to the garage, start the car, turn the heater and demister on full, push the button to turn on the seat heaters, and run back to the house thinking how nice it would be to live in the Bahamas. My glasses will frost up instantly when I step into the house; when they thaw out again it's time to go back out and drive the car. (Canada will never pass a law against running cars to warm them up: the death toll would be staggering.)

[thirdcrank]

... About "cold air for demisting": this one confused me in our most recent Volvo. Our mechanic ("Volvo Guru" as it says on his business card) explained that at its maximum setting the demister runs the air through the air conditioning system … which dries the air before it is heated and blown onto the windscreen. (Or maybe it's warmed first and then air-conditioned; as it seems to function well I don't think about it any more )

Re the air in the face, I'm talking about temperate climes. The original Mini - my first experience of driving - had the fist eyeball vents that I remember. That's not to argue there weren't others. It was possible to have fresh air - ie at the outside temperature - while the relatively primitive - and theoretically optional - heater was blowing warm air onto the rest of you. My Renault Fourgon van had a simple flap along the bottom edge of the winscreen which could be opened but that didn't have separate provision for the front passenger, who might have preferred the soporific effects of warm air. Our Landrover had a similar set-up but also an electrically heated windscreen system with fine filaments embedded in the glass. I believe Ford had some thing similar at some point. Somewhere along the line, face-level vents began blowing at the same temperature as the rest of the heating system. I first noticed this in a VW Golf around 1990.

Re the air conditioning to demist, warm air can hold more moisture before it becomes saturated. On cooling, it is more easily saturated and one result is condensation on any cold surface, in this case the windscreen. Obviously, if air is somehow dried, there's less moisture to condense on cold surfaces. It seems to me there are two possible approaches: the traditional one is to use some of the surplus heat from the engine to warm the incoming air which in turn, warms the windscreen making condensation less likely. The more recent approach is to use electricity (whose generation inevitably increases fuel consumption) to dry the air but also to chill it. (We first got this set-up on a Toyota Rav 4 and there was no way to dry the air and warm it.) On our current Audi, the demist is OK until you turn it off, at which point it inevitably mists up again, because the winscreen is still cold. As well as using more fuel, the more complications there are, the more there is to go wrong.

Manufacturers seem unable to agree on whether A/C = air cooling or air conditioning. IMO, air cooling is great on the few days here when the weather is unpleasantly hot. We first had it on a Toyota Yaris in 1999 and it was a revelation. Air conditioning seems to be a step too far.

In the context of this thread, the more you have to fiddle about, especially in an unfamiliar car, the more there is to cause an unnecessary distraction.

[Mick F]

We're on our third car with air conditioning.
Clio, Fiat500, and now a Yaris Hybrid.

At no time ever, do we switch the air-con off. It's on permanently.
Dry clean air and demists quickly. You can use the heater to keep cosy warm, but still have conditioned air.