Driver distraction / evaluation standards (ADAM)

Hear hear!

Again, I am not surprised.

There are so many examples. Another 'favourite' is hotel rooms. In some of these fancy-shmantzy places the design and layout of rooms is terrible when looking at clothers hanging and laying (stop smirking: English, not American meaning) space, sockets, desk space etc, even when supposedly appealing to business travellers.

Don't they send round some real people? I think that many goods are designed by the geeks of the relevant industry.

I could rant on about related matters, such as the sharply risen cost of local calls from hotels (a problem for Net access).... (note for North Americans: local calls are metred in Europe and are not free).

DAS

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Cynic!

DAS

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Sometimes it's a scroogy cost issue. Those push-and-hold buttons are cheaper than a volume knob.

Matt O.

At least one point in favor of security :-) It disturbs me badly to busy myself with looking for the pushbutton at first and holding it during some time after it while it takes no time to get the volume adjusted in no time with a knob. Once upon a time there was a computer game named Test Drive 2 (for Amiga IIRC, later on for IBM PC too). All the action took place on the California seaside roads. And no driving wheels this time, only keyboard. It was very interesting that my colleagues who didn't have

*any* driving practice got better results than me who had some years' driving experience. It was like driving a bulldozer by two sticks on the highway :-) Pull the left one and the tractor turn left... pull the right one and it turns right.... The very problem is that a steering wheel can be turned vith varying angular velocity, user interfaces have the pace set by someone else.

Helar

You should look at the Audi version of such control systems, called MMI. So far reviewers have seen it as much easier than iDrive.

One really good feature of iDrive, however, is the placement of the screen. In the 7series it's as high and as forward as possible. That means that the driver is better able to adjust viewing distance to the screen from the long distance view to the road (accommodation). For you young folks it doesn't matter now, but to us 50 plussers it's a big deal. Also the viewing angle to the screen is as small as possible, compared to looking straight ahead. So while you are watching or sampling the screen to set the radio station, you still have the lane boundaries in your non-foveal (non-central) field of view and can keep the car in the lane pretty well. I tended to stay in my lane as well as when I watched, though I was not fully attentive to traffic. And I still took too darn long to find the station I wanted!

I notice from the Road and Track review of the new A8 that the screen is in the center stack, not high on the dashboard topper panel. It should not be as good as the BMW design in terms of accommodation.

Haven't driven the Audi or Mercedes.

Ken

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Mercedes