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Just mulling this over prompted in part by a thread on here, watching top gear and by my own experiences.
I've always had crappy old bangers and the current car ( an oldish Volvo S80 ) has all kinds of info available on the dashboard readout. The first few months I had it, I was constantly fiddling with heating, satnav, mpg indicators ( instant and average )... Sometimes I'd get to the end of a road and realise I'd barely looked out of the car! Terrifying.
As soon as I realised I was doing this, I set everything before I started off but even so, I still sometimes catch myself being inattentive.
Edit - bloody phone posted too soon. So with newer cars, is the problem even worse? Do people sit and play with traction control? Are all these things massively distracting?
Mrs busydog has a new Toyota Highlander and I find the screen very distracting. She leaves the GPS/map thing on all the time and I find it pulls my attention away. Also find the Bluetooth that is synched with her cell phone an issue when it rings. She travels all over the city for work, so has both the phone synch and the GPS map on all the time.
Guess maybe I am just old-school 😆
my car has a head-up display - tells me my speed, how many seconds I am from the car in front and a few other things
I also get to play tetris on long boring drives
So that's a yes then?! Might explain some of the near misses and folk pulling out in front of us. Probably changing their suspension setting...
My biggest distraction when driving is a 3-year-old who can't decide between They Might Be Giants and the Chemical Brothers. I have had to pull over several times to sort out madam's soundtrack 😉