Posts Tagged ‘ MyFord Touch ’

Distracted Driver Alert: Keep your Hands off My Ford Touch

June 13th, 2011. By Hunter West

The distracted driver is becoming just as serious a problem as drunk driving used to be before society woke up, looked in the rear view mirror and saw themselves as the pariahs they had become. People still drive drunk—or tired, which is almost as bad—but the penalties for a DUI have increased and there is no longer any tolerance for it.

Distracted driving is the new battleground. The other day near where I live an 18-year-old plowed head-on into a transport truck with his small car. He didn’t stand a chance; the tragedy is that he had been texting while driving. His phone records indicate he had sent a text to a friend just seconds before his promising life came to a tragic end, in an instant.

So why, are manufacturers putting more distracting technology in their vehicles? Because the other guy is, and they want to out-tech to compete? Are drivers asking for this stuff?

Has everybody gone nuts?

Consumer Reports magazine is a bastion of common sense. No ties to lobbyists or manufacturers, funded privately through subscriptions with no bias, with independent testing facilities and protocols second to none. When Consumer Reports likes, or dislikes something, there is significant weight to that recommendation or rejection.

So it is telling that Consumer Reports no longer recommends the Ford Edge Sport.

Why? Because the 2011 model has too much damned technology on board, available to the driver in the cockpit. Specifically, the issue is the MyFord Touch system.

Witness a recent summation of the system by a reviewer in The New York Times:

“Ford has added an 8-inch LCD touch screen in the center of the dash that now coordinates not only entertainment functions, like the radio, satellite radio and MP3 playback, but also phone calls, the navigation system and the climate control, as well as settings for, among many others, the traction and cruise controls.”

In other words, way too much stuff to fiddle with. Consumer Reports has come down hard on it, and cited the system as one of the reasons why the vehicle had low test scores.

There is no question that the technology is amazing. It’s just out of place. And the addition of a touch screen to the dashboard of the 2011 Ford Edge had engineers at Ford balking, arguing that it could be considered a source of driver distraction.

But Ford went ahead with it anyway, assuming presumably that such technology would make boffo TV ads. And it does. The system sounds mighty impressive.

But it’s misplaced in a car, accessible to the driver.

Here’s reviewer John R. Quain again, writing May 27^th in The New York Times:

“While [the screen] has some benefits, like a crystal-clear view from the rear-facing camera, it lacks tactile feedback. So when you reach down to tap on a music selection you must take your eyes off the road or you’ll touch the incorrect tiny button…”

He also noted that the screen is about four or five inches too low, forcing the driver to look down and to the right when accessing the screen.

Which means, the driver is taking his eyes off the road—just for an instant.

That’s how long the 18 year-old took his eyes off the road to hit ‘send’ on his smartphone, a microsecond before his car slammed head-on into the transport truck.

Ford may have a techno-marvel on its hands. However, I have to disagree that the cockpit is the proper place for it. And if a family member of mine were ever to be hurt or maimed by a distracted 2011 Ford Edge driver due to the complexity and availability of the MyFord Touch system, I would make damn sure that the manufacturer that built the silly system into the car in the first place, was one of the primary defendants of my car accident lawsuit.

Tags: Car Technology, Dashboard Computer, Distracted Driver, LED Dashboard, My Ford Touch, MyFord Touch
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