NHTSA Suggestion Would Cripple In-Car GPS Displays

bricko writes "The recently issued National Highway Transportation Safety Agency guidelines for automakers to minimize distraction for in-vehicle electronics included a proposal to freeze maps on navigation systems. No more scrolling maps...just static pictures. 'Every current installed navigation system uses the car as a fixed point, and shows the map moving around it. NHTSA wants that changed so as to keep the map fixed. Even showing the position of the car moving on the map could be considered a dynamic image. The recommendation seems to suggest that the position of the car could only be updated every couple of seconds. Likewise, the map could be refreshed once the car has left the currently displayed area. This recommendation would essentially make navigation unusable. The system could still give an auditory warning for the next turn, but without being able to glance down at the map and see how close the next street is would likely lead to a lot of missed turns and resultant frustration.'"

Comments

This Is A Bad Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

People will just realize they are about to go the wrong way and change lanes even later than they already do.

Re:This Is A Bad Idea

[kanweg]

Unfortunately most brains aren't good at multitasking. Well, speaking for myself: Mine isn't. The good thing about a navigation system is that I can pay attention to the road and spend very little time worrying about where to go. I need an occasional glance at the screen to resolve an issue (Navigon isn't very good; TomTom is pretty good), other than that it isn't really a distraction. I've to spend less time watching road signs for directions as the information comes in audio form to me. The info also also always repeated, so I can ignore it if it doesn't suit me because of a complicated traffic situation that deserves my immediate attention.

Bert

Re:This Is A Bad Idea

[TheRaven64]

The problem is that it means that people will spend longer looking at the screen. Rather than glancing at it and seeing the layout instantly, they'll have to find the car on the screen, which may mean one or two seconds without their eyes on the road.

Re:This Is A Bad Idea

[penix1]

I always find it amazing that electronic gadgets are a "distraction" yet non-electronic ones are not. You don't see legislation to outlaw paper maps, coffee cups, makeup, food, etc from vehicles. Yet we see state after state as well as the feds weighing in on the rush to make electronic devices illegal or unusable while driving.

Look, it is all about the revenue these laws and regulations generate from the tickets they issue. It has very little to do with safety. If it had something to do with safety they would stiffen the law that covers distracted driving (reckless driving) more and leave the reason for the reckless driving out of it.

In my home state of West Virginia this year they just passed a law making use of a cell phone illegal while driving. That isn't the part that shows it is about revenue. The revenue generator is it was made a primary offense with a stiff fine attached to it. Meanwhile that law does very little for any other form of distracted driving.

Re:This Is A Bad Idea

[Leebert]

It should be illegal for any screen of any type to be visible to the driver of the vehicle.

What's the difference between a screen displaying operational data (like navigation) or any of the various gauges that you use to operate the vehicle?

For instance, I find myself very distracted by constantly looking down to my speedometer when going through some of the areas around my home where the local police will nail you for 35 in a 25. I'm so (necessarily) fixated on the speedometer, I can't actually *drive*.

GPS devices are FAR safer than the alternatives. I don't know if you remember what the world was like pre-GPS, but it wasn't at all uncommon to have a map unfolded on a seat next to you that you consult from time to time when navigating through unfamiliar territory. A quick glance at a GPS which shows me a 3D representation of the route I need to take hands-down beats several seconds of scanning a map to figure out where I am and where I need to be.

Re:This Is A Bad Idea

[jpapon]

It is definitely, certainly, and without a doubt 100% the role of government to keep the roads safe. That is not an intrusion into your private life.

Now whether or not these laws actually DO make the roads safer is something else... but get out of here with your ultra-libertarian nonsense.

is the presumption that it is the job of nanny/father government to take care of every little thing in life

It is NOT a presumption to expect the government to protect me from reckless drivers.

Re:This Is A Bad Idea

[icebraining]

So because it's not 100% effective, it's useless? What a ridiculous position.

Re:This Is A Bad Idea

[jc42]

... our stand-alone GPS has the option to either orient the map in direction of travel or orient the map towards North. The latter is bloody confusing and not preferred.

That seems to vary from person to person. I have a GPS gadget that also has that option. I tried the "up is forward" scheme for a while, and found it confusing, so I switched back to "up is north", which I personally find much easier to understand. This is probably related to my wife's observation that I almost always seem to know which direction I'm going, and she doesn't understand how I do that. I don't either, but at least I don't try to impose my preferred method on others who don't have an innate sense of direction.

There are a number of other such sensual differences among people. Among musicians, for example, some people hear the absolute pitch of notes ("perfect pitch"), while others don't, but hear musical intervals well ("relative pitch"). There's a long-running debate over which is better. Perfect pitch means you can pick up your instrument and join in without needing to ask (or experiment to determine) the key. But people like that tend to be really confused if someone plays something in a "wrong" key; the relative-pitch people don't hear anything unusual about this, and often routinely play things in whatever key is best for the others. This can come in really handy if you're backing up singers.

The best conclusion is that there are advantages and disadvantages to either approach, and you should learn to take advantage of whichever works for you. I'd consider a GPS that only does "up is forward" to be a crappy, annoying product, and I wouldn't buy it. And in general, I'd want one that implements both schemes, for situations where I'd like someone else to use it (e.g. as the navigator while I drive).

Actually, the idea of a passenger doing the navigating is one of the best ways of shooting down all the schemes such as this one. A good GPS system is one that the navigator can easily jigger to match their preferred way of doing things (including things like changing font size for different visual acuities), and then change them again quickly when someone else takes over the navigation task. We should be pushing for GPS gadgets that are good at this, with many modes of operation that are easy to change, and not for limitations that decrease their usefulness.

(I recently was driving with a passenger from China who wasn't very good at English. I quickly changed my Garmin Nüvi to speak Mandarin, handed it to him, and the trip went well. I left it that way for a few days afterward, to get more familiar with Mandarin direction words, but this really annoyed my wife when she used the car for something. So she got even by setting it to speak Arabic. Then I changed it to Dutch, just for fun. But not all of its settings are so easy to find and change. ;-)

Re:This Is A Bad Idea

[ScrewMaster]

Or people will just move back to using portable devices instead of ones that are part of the car.

I pipe the audio output of my smartphone through my car's speakers. I also use it to listen to music on occasion: the music is automatically paused while the GPS is talking so there is no confusion. As it happens, I normally use Google Nav, and the voice works well enough that I rarely need the display. So well, in fact, that I usually just leave the phone in my pocket. If you do need to constantly look at the screen, it probably means your navigation system is poorly designed, or perhaps you are just a very insecure person. My girlfriend has dedicated GPS from Magellan, and it's turn-by-turn likewise works very well (somewhat better than Google's system in many cases.)

I agree with some other posters: get the units with low-quality software off the market. The government would do better mandating improved functionality rather than imposing arbitrary (and fundamentally dangerous) restrictions, restrictions which serve only to demonstrate how out-of-touch that particular bureaucracy is with this technology.

So, I think the NHTSA is a barking up the wrong tree. Mandate GPS use training in driver education and be done with it. Penalizing the bulk of the population that has no problem using GPS successfully for the misdeeds of the few is just bad lawmaking. It will, however, be profitable for the locales that implement such regulation, so I have no doubt that many will.

Bunch of idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

I swear, government must be run by the lowest common denominator.

Your brain will easily tune out a smoothly scrolling picture that has minute changes one frame to the next. A change in the visual environment that is small will not trigger a threat assessment by the brain.

However, if the image is still, and then suddenly changes, that is a far more significant change in the visualized environment, and the brain will tune to it to see if that change represents a threat.

Next billboards close the street, please.

[Tanuki64]

Drivers should focus on the street and the traffic and not being distracted by some ads.

Re:Next billboards close the street, please.

[geekmux]

Drivers should focus on the street and the traffic and not being distracted by some ads.

You bring up a great point actually, especially in the day of the electronic billboard. They're all over the place here, it's like looking at a HUGE TV screen...gee no distraction there...

Re:Garmin lobbyists

[realityimpaired]

*shrugs* If I need GPS, I use my cell phone. It has current maps, and doesn't require me to buy a $200 update every few months so I'm up to date.

I also stuff it in the cup holder and just listen to the auditory commands, if I'm using it for navigation. The screen *is* a distraction. If I want to study the route, I'll do it when the car isn't moving.

Actually, to that end, I'm a bit surprised that the NHTSA isn't suggesting that the in-dash navigation systems should blank the screen while the car is moving. That would make things significantly safer, I think.. they could even make it so that if it's pulled out and facing the passenger seat instead of the driver, the screen unblanks and updates, so that a passenger can give directions.

Ever hear of a "map"?

[msobkow]

For those of you bleating about how this idea will make GPS "unusable", I have one question:

Have you ever used a paper map?

Remember the "bad old days" of folding out the map at the side of the road, looking at it, and planning the next leg of your trip?

That's right: figuring out where and when you have to turn BEFORE you reach the turn. Actually KNOWING where you're going instead of letting a machine do the "thinking".

This change would not cause the world to come to a sudden end, but it might well force people to think and plan for themselves again. And if that means some brain-dead loser suddenly can't get where they're going, I say "good riddance -- you were a road hazard anyhow, careening around the streets with no idea where you are going."

Re:Ever hear of a "map"?

[rolfwind]

Growing up, I remember the bad old days where my dad was trying read a map at the same time as driving, when I was to young to act as navigator. Or a couple of near hits on his part while navigating a foreign city looking for a specific street sign and not really watching the road.

He now uses GPS and is probably safer than most of my generation, because he doesn't know texting and isn't addicted to a smart phone, but that's another story.

Re:Ever hear of a "map"?

[PortHaven]

Yes, and I remember how often I got friggin lost. Or how !@#$% up it was when the exit was closed and I had to find an alternative route, or the map was wrong (very common).

I also remember how dangerous it was trying to look at the map, fold it, and plan my re-route all while trying to drive. Or the dangers of having to pull off to the side of the highway, then try to merge back in traffic.

Do you remember when we didn't even have cars. Oh that was a grand time, no oil changes, no breakdowns, no timing belt failures, and no worry of rising gas prices. Man those were the days.

Let's hate on progess some more and be elitist arrogant pricks. Hoor-ahhh!

Re:Ever hear of a "map"?

[Mr. Underbridge]

Remember the "bad old days" of $SOME_CRAPPY_THING_THAT_OLD_PEOPLE_THINKS_MAKE_THEM_HARDCORE ?

Fixed that. Some things are just better than other things. Nav systems are one such thing. Further, the best nav systems display the upcoming turn from either the driver's POV or a close-in top-down with forward displayed up. This is helpful when a glance can give indication of where exactly the turn is. This is invaluable particularly with irregular or dense intersetions, where a verbal "turn right in a quarter mile" could yield 20 options.

I hate driver distraction as much as the next guy, but when one glance down for a quarter second can actually make the driver safer, we'll cope.

So go be a grumpy old guy about something else, like how Metamucil takes like shit.

Re:Ever hear of a "map"?

[enjar]

Maps are only useful when the municipality you live in has marked the roads properly. Here in Massachusetts they mark cross-streets only, not the road you are on. And even then the signs are in non-uniform places, have different colors (some black on white, others white on green, still others white on brown, some have a mix), different sizes and sometimes they are not there at all. And they also compete with the billion other signs out there. There is no interest in upgrading, standardization or other things to make it better. The roads are not arrayed in any sort of logical grid, either. In certain cities like Boston, there are a collection of one way streets that can make getting back on track really confusing. Not to mention aggressive drivers, pedestrians with a death wish, etc.

GPS has been the most revolutionary technology to allow me to get somewhere the first time. Previously when I'd have to go somewhere new, I'd get out my map, use mapquest, try to get directions first. Then I'd try and follow those directions. Sometimes they worked, other times not. I'd then call the place I was trying to go, and the first thing they asked -- what street are you on? You can't tell! You'd be reduced to trying other landmarks (I'm near a Dunkin Donuts next to a Catholic Church with a bar across the street), dead reckoning, the position of the sun (if you can see it), watching birds fly, etc.

So, yes, I am quite well versed in how to use a map. I can read and use road maps, topo maps, directions written out on a napkin. The GPS fills in all the gaps nicely to let me get where I'm going when something goes wrong, which can happen due to any number of circumstances beyond my control. It also talks to me so I can prepare for turns and don't need to take my eyes off the driving. It's a wonderful technology and I'd hate to see it crippled my some lame-brained administrator.

NHTSA = dumb !@#$%

[PortHaven]

1. All this will do is encourage people NOT to waste $2,500 on in car GPS units and use their cell phones handheld or mounted to their dashboards.

2. It clearly shows the NHTSA hasn't done any real research on this issue. If they had, they would have come out with a much different solution. My own independent research has made it clear that GPS units screen movement are not the issue but the location of the unit. (off to the right, centered in console)

Safety would be greatly improved by relocating the GPS console to the driver's side directly in line of sight, and with a night heads-up display even better. Why is this? Because having it in the center of the console forces drivers to look away from the road, and offers ZERO reduction in distraction. However, placement in front of the driver's line of sight does something interesting. Even when the driver is distracted by looking at the screen, the road remains in the driver's line of sight, and the driver's peripheral vision remains on the road.

Peripheral vision is attuned to movement. A driver is able to still be alerted to an incoming car or obstacle even while focusing on the GPS screen when it is position properly.

D@|\/|N Government....

Re:You think that's bad?

[PortHaven]

Well that's moronic. What if you're the passenger. *sheesh*

Is there a real problem?

[confuscan]

Cell phone use is being banned in cars because studies showed that you effectively drive "drunk" when you're talking on the phone. Science wins on that one. What's the equivalent evidence for GPS systems? I haven't heard of anything. In fact, GPS systems appear to have been designed to minimize such distractions, allow easy and quick referencing and along with voice instructions, allow relatively safe navigation. I think science wins on this one as well. Scrap the regulation.

Re:Also,

[Lt.Hawkins]

So totally off topic, but prompted by your last sentence: I'm currently renting a car, a Toyota Yaris, I think. They moved the WHOLE DASH to the CENTER.

This: http://www.carid.com/dash-kit-gallery/images/dash-kits/Toyota_Yaris_2006-UP_2427BE_A04.jpg

Oh my god, It is the worst ever. I feel like I'm a danger on the road every time I try to check my speed. Who in their right minds thought this was a good idea?

Want a great example?

[Sycraft-fu]

Look at the dearth of numerical LCD gauges in cars. Why is that? We used analogue meters back in the day because, well, that's all we had. However in a modern car, that instrument cluster is part or all digital on the back end. It has to convert the digital signals it gets to the analogue gauges. So why not go for digital LED numbers? Cheaper to produce, and more accurate. You'd know your speed down to the MPH (presuming the unit that reads it is that accurate). In fact there were some cars with them at one point, but they seem to have gone away.

Well the reason is it is distracting. If you put a big LCD speed readout there it's abrupt changes distract the driver more than the smooth movement of a needle. Quick changes catch the eye, smooth motion not as much.

Same would hold true for something like this. A smooth updating map that scrolls along with car movement isn't very noticeable. Something suddenly changing draws the attention.

Re:Want a great example?

[Will.Woodhull]

Speedometers are a distraction while driving and constitute a real danger to both the driver and anyone in his immediate vicinity. NHTSA should focus its efforts on banning them, or at the least, blanking them (and all other dashboard instruments) while the car is in motion.

Also something needs to be done about drivers who are bobbing their heads around to the beat of the music they are listening to. They are clearly in a state of distraction and are also a distraction to other drivers. Cops should have the authority to pull them over, take their driver license on the spot, and assure that they will no longer pose an immediate hazard by confiscating the vehicle's sparkplug wires.

Every few Seconds?

[NEDHead]

If I wanted updates on my driving every few seconds, I wouldn't bother to duct tape my wife's mouth.

Re:Hyperbole much?

[JaredOfEuropa]

For that reason, paper maps are *far* more dangerous to use while driving. No use glancing at them, you need to look at them for a bit to orientate yourself and make sense of them. Yes, you could study the map before you leave, but most people are not really able to memorize the complete route, and it certainly isn't easy to re-route if you miss your turn.

Our former head of traffic police (in the Netherlands), who is notoriously averse of gadgetry in cars, quoted several studies that navigation systems are by far the safest option for navigating an area that you're not familiar with, winning over memorizing maps, having paper maps in the car, stopping to ask directions, or just winging it. The one thing that is safer is having a co-pilot with either a paper map or a GPS.

Re:Also,

[T-Bucket]

The ones who thought it was a good idea were the bean counters who figured they could save themselves a few bucks by not having two different dashboards for left or right drive cars. But you know, "safety is our first priority... right after money." (Like the airlines!)

Re:This Is A Good Idea

[SDrag0n]

Generally speaking, I agree with you. On the other hand, I know some people (my wife) who can't navigate anywhere and are constantly turned around. The reality is some people have a good sense of direction and can memorize a map with ease, and some people can't.

I'd rather have my wife using a GPS then call me frustrated while trying to describe where she is while actually having no idea and just becoming more and more angry.

Re:This Is A Good Idea

[lister king of smeg]

I am wasteing my previous mod points but oh well I do not have a in car navagation system or gps or even smart phone with internet, but you say that people do not need gps nav because most people do not go all that many places that they do not the way to all that often. That may be true for you but if for people like me who go trying out new hiking and camping and fishing places way out in the middle of nowhere on back roads a nav system would be a God send. I hate trying to read a map while driving and no reading it before hand is not always enough. If I am driving clear across Washington state to go fishing with freinds just glancing at a map before leaving is not enough. Just because you do not have a use for it does not mean others do not have a use for it.

Re:Screen

[nitehawk214]

Glancing at a screen from time to time, while listening to the audio directions is really not much of a distraction. I am stuck delivering pizza at the moment...

But posting to Slashdot while driving a car is downright dangerous!

Re:Screen

[icebraining]

If you want to eliminate distractions, make handheld cellphones inoperable while moving.

As a bus and train passenger, I thank you for that suggestion. Not only will I be unable to use a cellphone even if I'm not endangering anyone, as I'll have to waste all my battery to keep the GPS always-on, in order to ensure that restriction.