
Tesla Model 3 Driver Has License Suspended After Adjusting Wipers via Touchscree - tomohawk
https://www.thedrive.com/news/35301/tesla-model-3-driver-has-license-suspended-by-judge-after-adjusting-wipers-via-touchscreen
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akerl_
It’s worth noting that the driver didn’t have their license suspended for
adjusting their wipers. They had their license suspended because they crashed
their car while adjusting their wipers. In the court’s opinion, interacting
with the touchscreen distracted the driver sufficiently to lead to the crash.

The driver’s defense (that the touchscreen is a safety device because it also
shows the speedometer) seems hard to fathom. Clearly if the driver was
watching YouTube on the touchscreen, the fact that it also shows their speed
wouldn’t have been relevant.

It seems more concerning that Tesla’s wiper controls can’t be operated in
manual mode w/o visual attention from the driver. I own a Model 3, and I don’t
think I could reasonably change the wiper settings w/o looking at the screen,
despite knowing where the UI options are and their general layout.

~~~
CorruptVoices
5+ years ago people complained about this problem on Ford vehicles. Now that
Tesla does it, people love it.

Is there a psychological name for this?

~~~
ebg13
> _Now that Tesla does it, people love it._

No they don't. Nobody ever applauds this. People buy Teslas despite the
touchscreen being the only way to do certain things, not because of it.

> _Is there a psychological name for this?_

"Making things up"?

~~~
cmrdporcupine
Nope, I've actually had people defend this. Not convincingly, but they try.

I believe the official argument is that the controls on the actual steering
wheel are programmable, so you don't usually need the touchscreen. But I
mean.. Most people don't bother doing this kind of thing... They're lazy...
Hell, I'm an emacs user for 30 years, but I've only ever used the default
keybindings...

This touch screen obsession is why I won't buy a Model 3 or Y, despite being a
potential customer.

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akdor1154
Would be great if regulation could step in and enforce some rules around what
we all know already - touchscreen controls in a car are vastly inferior to,
and more dangerous than, physical knobs.

~~~
humblebee
A lite touch to anything shouldn't activate something in a car. Drivers are
effectively blind to anything else in the car while driving and controls
should be design in such a way that the use of the drivers eyes are not
required.

Keep the drivers eyes on the road.

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lmilcin
I don't know... screens require you to actually look at them to be able to do
anything while mechanical controls can be designed to be tactile and to not
require the driver to be distracted/focused on the control.

I drive 2014 Skoda Rapid and every single control I really need for operating
the car is tactile and operated through muscle memory.

Muscle memory effectively lets me offload my visual and conscious parts of
brain.

For example, when driving in rain I just manually activate wipers when I need
them, except for heavy rain. I don't move my eyes to operate it, it does not
occupy my conscious brain, it just becomes second nature the same way other
things become second nature when driving a car. I don't focus on it. I see
something interesting I want to see better, I just run wipers without ever
thinking about it the same way I don't have to remember to move my right and
left leg to walk straight.

I can't imagine having to move my eyes and my hand at the same time to start
fiddling with a screen and it just doesn't matter how good the UI is.

------
boring_twenties
Touchscreens in cars should have been made illegal years ago. Manufacturers
should be forced to recall and fix every single car that has one, even if it
bankrupts them. This is such an obviously egregiously stupid thing to have
ever implemented that they fully deserve to be on the hook for fixing it.

~~~
Covzire
Anytime I change the AC or point a vent in another direction or grab something
from the glove box I have to look away momentarily. Why are touchscreens so
much more distracting for basic controls?

~~~
crote
Do you really, though?

I'd bet you don't need to look at the controls to use your turn signals or
parking brake. Pretty much every traditional control, including AC and radio,
is designed for use by feel only: you jab your hand roughly in the right
direction, find the control by feel (perhaps remembering that volume is the
right dial, temperature is the left), and adjust it all without looking at it.

If you remember the ordering of the controls - which you automatically will
after spending more time using them - you'll be able to blindly use them. The
problem with touch screens is that, even if you know the exact location of the
control, you still must look at the screen to find the exact location. You
can't "walk" your finger over the touch screen and press the second button
from the left. You can't use any form of muscle memory.

Sure, you must still look at the AC if you want to set it exactly at 25
degrees, but nobody does that anyway. You usually just want it to be a little
bit cooler, so you twist the knob a tick or two counter-clockwise. And
grabbing stuff from the glovebox? Personally, I'd consider that highly
irresponsible. You simply shouldn't be doing that wile driving. Wait until
you're stopped for a traffic light or something.

~~~
caf
I wonder if haptic feedback as seen in mobile phones could make touch screens
usable by feel only.

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kevin_b_er
This is an example of how there are just some controls that must be tactile in
a moving vehicle. You have to be able to use them w/o staring at a screen. And
activating the wipers in the event of sudden rain seems like something that
should've had controls.

Even then, I find on my car I must adjust the windshield wipers to conditions
when driving through rain. If the rain gets heavier, then I turn them to a
higher setting. This isn't possible with a Tesla? There's a physical control
on it, but it seems to only do the fluid spray or a single swipe?

I get the big dash touchscreen yields software benefits through OTA, but a
certain level of tactile is needed as long as there's a human driving.

Otherwise you get an incident like this where you can't safely engage the
wipers.

~~~
boring_twenties
Another thing that surprised me is that in a Tesla, of all things, one has to
intervene in any way to turn on the wipers?

Why wouldn't they just turn on automatically when it's raining? My entry-level
BMW from 2008 does this, as well as automatically adjust the speed depending
on how hard it's raining. The OEM rain sensor part costs $230, and this is not
a brand known for undercharging for parts.

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Johnny555
If German drivers aren't legally allowed to use the touchscreen for basic
driving tasks like adjusting the windshield wiper setting, then whatever
German regulatory agency that let Tesla sell in Germany should not have
allowed the car to be sold. (and if adjusting the wipers takes so much
attention that it led to the crash, then arguably the car shouldn't be sold
anywhere with that UI)

That's the thing I dislike the most about Tesla, that everything is run by the
touchscreen. They should sell a modular dashboard gauge and button set for
those that want real controls and gauges.

~~~
contravariant
While I can see your point it's possible that Tesla might have skirted the
rules a bit by adding a lever that _does_ activate the windshield wipers but
doesn't allow you to control their speed. I don't understand this choice
either but it's easy to imagine that legislators didn't predict someone would
try this either.

Presumably the legally correct way would be to activate the windshield wipers
when necessary and to pull over if you want to adjust their speed. Similar to
how you're supposed to use GPS.

~~~
Johnny555
When you need to set a new destination in your GPS, you can wait until you get
off at the next exit, but when you've started your trip in light rain and have
your wipers on low, when it suddenly starts raining harder, I don't see how
it's reasonable to expect a driver to wait until he can stop safely before he
set's the wipers on "high".

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imwm
"It didn't help that he crashed while doing so."

...is the subtitle. Might have been nice to say in the headline, which is
clickbait.

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chrstphrknwtn
The huge central touchscreen in Tesla cars look hilariously ill-conceived.
Perhaps they’re useful for some things, but if I was given the task of
designing the most distraction-prone addition to a car interior, it would be a
big screen pointed toward the driver.

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Waterluvian
I wonder what pilots think about the Model 3 interface.

I’m not one but I love all the buttons and knobs in and around my wheel. The
2020 Forester has a freakish number of them. But it lets me do so much without
taking my hands off the wheel or eyes far from the dash if at all.

~~~
chrstphrknwtn
Do you mean aircraft pilots? Or do you mean regular drivers of Tesla cars?

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Gravityloss
You could have the best of both worlds - flexible but tactile controls if you
had a small screen on every button. This has been done in a keyboard years
ago:
[https://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/maximus/](https://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/maximus/)

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contravariant
The way this title suddenly cuts off makes it seem as if OP was doing
something similar, but the missing n after Touchscree is probably just a typo.

~~~
stu2b50
Tesla Model 3 driver has license suspended after posting on hackernews via
touchscree

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giomasce
The words "driver", "license" and "crash" have two sets of meaning in software
and cars domains. Tesla intersects both domains. Took me a while to gather
what was happening.

At the beginning I thought the person driving the car sued Tesla because the
LCD driver crashed, and Tesla got its license to sell cars in Germany
suspended.

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csours
Coming from an American, I'm kind of shocked that a single person accident (as
I understand it) wound up in court.

~~~
dogma1138
Pretty common around the world, especially when you have universal health
care.

1) you’ve committed a traffic violation.

2) you’ve damaged property and caused a casualty even if it’s only one being
yourself.

You won’t always end up in court but if the accident was due to a a severe
failure on your part (and wasn’t unavoidable) for example drunk driving or
using a cell phone it doesn’t matter if you hit a tree or another car as far
as the law goes.

~~~
refurb
This doesn’t sound different than the US at all.

If you get a DUI or are negligent and cause injury or accident you’ll end up
in court.

~~~
csours
I've been in several single person accidents (all of them over 10 years ago, I
was a super crappy driver as a teenager) that neither the police nor the
courts nor insurance ever found out about

~~~
refurb
I’m assuming it would need to hit some threshold of property damage or injury
to get on the cops radar.

If you just roll your own car and get it towed away, I wouldn’t be surprised
the cops never find out. Slam into someone’s house and it’s harder to cover
up!

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sandworm101
A touchscreen for the wiper control? Really?

I'm reminded of the early attempts at "smart" homes. After you have stumbled
around in the dark a few time you learn to appreciate the simple utility of a
mechanical switch.

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_nalply
How about a hack with a DIY button? Glue the button somewhere comfortable and
let the button talk to the car. Impossible? Shmimpossible!

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fortran77
I wasn't sure if the budget "3" has the same controls the full-featured Tesla
does, but it does (according to the article). There was no reason to use the
touchscreen to turn on the wipers.

~~~
mehrdada
This is not true. On the S wiper speed is adjustable at the steering wheel as
well as enable/disable. On the 3 you can just activate it or sprinkle water
but not adjust the wiper speed.

~~~
fortran77
Thanks. Tesla really should have picked a different brand for the "3" (like
Lexus / Avalon). Otherwise they'll dilute their luxury line.

~~~
mehrdada
I don't know. I have driven all Teslas (except the Y) at length, and I think I
prefer the simplicity of the 3 UI overall (wiper controls on cars need trial
and error to figure out esp if you change the car you drive often). This seems
to be a one-off distraction issue blamed on this particular setting, but I
seriously doubt that's a significant concern beyond the general "some rarely
used controls are on the touchscreen" distraction problem, especially since
the car has a pretty robust Autopilot assistant system that allows for a
moment of looking at the screen.

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dagurp
It can't be long until we see regulations about driver interfaces. Certain
operations should be available without distraction of menus

~~~
jtbayly
And even when the screen UI crashes.

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kentlyons
Or just use voice to set the wiper speed - completely eyes free

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modzu
i agree it should be a crime but charged against tesla not the driver

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cek
Edit: I obviously have not had enough coffee today. Nevermind.

~~~
6nf
'They' is the correct singular pronoun when you don't know the sex of the
person, for example because their name was not released by the court.

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goshx
Let’s pretend nobody has ever crashed their non-Tesla vehicles while
distracted with controls.

Wake me up when this becomes actual news and not a single anecdote.

~~~
whoisjuan
I think the debate here is whether or not, Tesla's approach to their final
user experience deteriorates the safety of the vehicle.

In this particular case the Wipers speed seems to be controlled from the
screen, while in other cars speed can be controlled with the side lever
without taking your eyes out of the road.

Those small and minor details can make the difference in at least a small
percentage of accidents.

~~~
goshx
Ok, but this is still about one single case.

It’s like people who have no experience with Tesla vehicles hate the company
for whatever reason and are looking for validation of their judgement.

