Touchscreens aren't the villain: lazy cockpit design is

How long should a driver take their eyes off the road just to switch on the defroster? Allianz's latest research suggests the answer depends far too much on which car you happened to buy, and we think the industry has treated that as a design preference rather than a safety question. That was a mistake.

Distraction may be a far bigger crash factor than we assumed

At its 14th Motor Day, held on October 21, 2026, the insurer presented a research program on distraction in the digital car. Its headline claim, according to Allianz's Swiss release, is that distraction is involved in at least one in three accidents, either as the trigger or as a contributing factor. Earlier estimates put the figure at around 10%. In a simulated emergency-braking scenario on a highway, Merkur reports, attentive drivers crashed 18.2% of the time. Distracted ones crashed 54.3% of the time.

The survey side is just as telling. In Germany, 77% say digitalization is adding to distraction, and 70% want classic controls rather than a touchscreen for central functions. In Austria, 31% of drivers with a touchscreen reported at least one critical situation caused by using it in the past three years.

The screen isn't the culprit, and that makes the case against carmakers stronger

Here is the nuance the headlines skip. Allianz itself says the touchscreen is not the problem. The problem is how functions are built into the cockpit concept. In its real-world driving study, the same everyday task took up to 25% less visual attention in one car than in another. On individual tasks, that amounted to roughly three seconds of looking away.

We think this is the most damning finding. It means the industry cannot hide behind "drivers just need to behave." If identical tasks vary that much between models, some manufacturers are shipping worse interfaces than others, and the gap clearly can be closed. Allianz notes that Euro NCAP in Europe already rewards designs with direct access to important functions rather than burying them in menus.

Also worth stating plainly: surveys measure perception, and the "critical situation" figures are self-reported. The scenario numbers, such as 18.2% versus 54.3%, come from a cognitive driver model fed with real gaze data, not from counting crashes caused by specific dashboards. That doesn't make them wrong, but we should read them as strong evidence of direction, not a precise tally.

Wipers, indicators and defrost should never need a menu

Allianz's list of safety-critical functions is refreshingly concrete: wipers, indicators, dipped and high beams, hazard lights, and window heating and defrosting. They should be reachable quickly and intuitively, either through physical switches or through permanently visible, fixed zones on the screen. We would drop the second option for most of them. A fixed screen zone still needs eyes; a stalk or button doesn't.

We suspect the "everything on screen" approach is cheaper and flashier in a showroom. But a dashboard that looks clean at a dealership and demands a glance at 50 km/h is a bad trade. Allianz puts that glance in perspective: at 50 km/h, a three-second look away covers almost 42 meters.

Regulation is catching up unevenly. Allianz says a driver distraction warning system has been mandatory on new cars since July 2026, but argues its thresholds are far too lenient: a warning after 3.5 seconds above 50 km/h and 6.0 seconds between 20 and 50 km/h. Our view: a warning that only arrives after more than three seconds of looking away is closer to a formality than a safeguard.

What buyers should do

Don't wait for regulators. When test-driving, try to change the temperature, defrost the windshield and adjust the fan without looking at the screen. If you can't, count that against the car as seriously as you would a weak brake rating. Also treat your phone as part of the problem: Allianz cites about 42% of drivers who at least occasionally look at it while driving.

Our verdict: the physical button is not nostalgia. It is a safety feature, and we doubt it costs much. Carmakers who keep deleting it are, in our view, betting that buyers won't notice until it's too late. Buyers can prove them wrong at the dealership.