It’s not just your phone: Nearly 1 in 3 Aussie drivers have had a close call using their car’s touchscreen
Key takeaways
- Nearly a third of surveyed Aussie drivers (29%) have had a critical situation, such as hard braking, a near miss or a crash, while using their car's touchscreen.
- More than two thirds (67%) want some functions kept on physical buttons or dials, not touchscreen-only menus.
- What's next: Being distracted by your car is unlikely to change who's at fault in an insurance claim, so set everything up before you drive.
Your phone's out of reach with "do not disturb" on, ready for a distraction-free drive. Then you go to turn the air con down and find yourself three menus deep in the touchscreen.
Nearly a third of Australian drivers (29%) have experienced a critical situation, such as hard braking, a near miss or a crash, while using their car's touchscreen, according to new research from Allianz.
Three in four (75%) believe distractions from in-car technology have increased in recent years, and 41% rate the overall risk of driver distraction as high or very high.
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Your car is now part of the problem
Functions you used to reach for without looking, like the air con, the volume or the navigation, are increasingly buried in touchscreen menus. Allianz's research suggests the extra taps and swipes can add to the time your eyes are off the road.
Chris Wood, emerging risks manager at Allianz Australia, said a car travelling at 50km/h covers almost 14 metres every second.
"Looking away from the road for three seconds to adjust a setting, enter a destination or search for a song means travelling more than 40 metres without fully watching the road ahead."
Allianz SE board member Dr Klaus-Peter Röhler went further, pointing to research showing the same task can take up to 25% less visual attention in one car than another.
"Distraction is not just a question of driver behaviour. It is also a question of design."
That's not to say phones are off the hook. More than a third of drivers (35%) admit to typing messages on a handheld phone while driving at least occasionally.
And distraction is showing up in crashes. One in five surveyed drivers (20%) said they'd caused or partly caused a crash in the past three years. Of those, 30% said distraction definitely played a role.
So who's at fault if your car distracted you?
If a fiddly touchscreen contributed to your crash, don't expect it to change who's at fault.
When assessing a claim, car insurers generally look at what happened on the road and whether the driver kept proper control of the vehicle, not which screen they were looking at.
If you're found at fault, you'll usually pay your excess.
In other words, "the touchscreen distracted me" is unlikely to get you off the hook. As far as your policy is concerned, you're the one in control of the car.
You can't always control what happens on the road, but you can make sure you're covered in a worst case scenario.
Find out how your cover stacks up to others in the market by comparing car insurance policies today.
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