NHTSA Distracted Driving Guidelines Threaten To Render In Car NAV Units Useless

The NHTSA should ban paper maps in vehicles (i.e., forbid then in the passenger are, can be transported only in the trunk). Paper maps are even more of a driver distraction having to (a) manipulate a large paper structure, (b) observe land-marks and street names, (c) relate these to the paper map by having to read the map and figure out where you are, (d) make spontaneous course correction by manually planning one's route, and (e) constantly reconcile one's actual position to a place on the map and relate that to one's intended route.

You'd think it would be much less of a distraction to just drive and have "Bitchin' Betty" tell you "In 1000 feet, take exit 234 to James Street, and then stay right."

In-car entertainment systems should be similarly banned. We don't want people looking through stacks of CDs to decide which disk to listen to. Same with audio systems, with all those choices of songs, stations, and other settings. Ditto with MMIs (vide-display Man/Machine Interfaces), like iDrive and Audi's thing. You know, with all those settings, menus, parameters and values, a driver could easily take his eyes off the road to work one of those.

Sometimes, I swear, I think the NHTSA is run by a bunch of grannies. No offence intended to grannies who can drive well.

They are focusing on pure numbers. At some point the numbers are acceptable. Accidents happen for various reasons

Do you ban people from crossing the street because 4200 people died in 2010 and 70,000 were injured?

Idiotic decision IMO. First, the NHTSA is simply buckling to the pressure of the media, which itself is overdramatizing accidents and fatalities, which a few years ago in the pre-twitter era would not have made much news. This is the effect of the 24 hr news cycle.

Second, moving maps in the NAV is much less distracting than having to manually hold and look at a map. Are they trying to bring vehicular accidents/deaths down to zero? That will never happen, regardless of the technology.

In my experience today's car technology is much more efficient and less distracting than the older, more manually involved technology. I don't need to dial my favorite radio station anymore, I don't have to look for and reach for the volume dial either, since I have it on my steering wheel, I don't have to find my phone and reach into my pocket while driving to answer my phone, now I simply push a button on my steering wheel which also automatically mutes my radio (saving me from further distraction).

The NHTSA is once again playing politics and overreaching trying to control everything we do.

Its stuff like this that makes the rest of the world laugh at America.

It's stuff like Greece and communist Europe that makes Americans laugh at the rest of the world.

What stuff? America isn't the best country in the world to live.

ive had gps in my cars since 2003 and only one car drove me absolutely nuts by not allowing me to enter addresses while the car was moving was the Lexus. IT SUCKED !!!!
I love BMW for allowing people to enter the stuff while driving... they know their drivers' are responsible and capable !!!

So, they want us to go back to the Flintstone era.
Next thing you know, they'll be banning manual transmissions for too much distraction!.

This is crazy.....

Maybe NHSTA should regulate themselves out of the state of stupidity.