My Audi has a knob which I can rotate in order to navigate through the menus without taking my eyes off the street. It also has a touch screen, but I only use it when standing still.
Mazda has something similar. I realized that "do __ without taking your eyes off the road" isn't really true, for the same reason that it's hard to read your phone and listen to someone at the same time. Most of the time you can strike a balance, but every once and a while your mind will completely blank and take a few moments to realize you stopped processing what you were hearing. Not a risk worth taking while driving.
I try to avoid using the knob while in motion as well.
There's also a difference between taking your eyes off the road momentarily to look at a simple predictable display in a fixed location, like a light or a needle or a fixed text display, and taking your eyes off the road indefinitely to look at a screen that displays something unpredictable, complex and arbitrary as part of an interactive session, usually with animations.
richbell|3 years ago
I try to avoid using the knob while in motion as well.
HelloNurse|3 years ago