New Zealand drivers favour buttons over touchscreens

AutoSense says 93% of surveyed New Zealand drivers whose vehicles have touchscreens have been distracted while using them. The finding comes from a poll of 476 people in New Zealand.

Among drivers with touchscreens, 22.9% said distraction happened frequently and 48.5% said it happened occasionally. The touchscreen question was answered by 367 respondents.

When asked which controls were easiest to use while driving, 49% chose physical knobs and buttons, while 6% chose touchscreens. About one in five respondents preferred a mix of both.

The results point to a gap between increasingly screen-focused vehicle interiors and how drivers say they prefer to use basic functions on the move. Almost 61% of those surveyed identified at least one screen, device or vehicle interface as something that commonly draws their attention away from the road.

These distractions included adjusting controls, checking navigation, work alerts and hands-free calls. The issue affects both private motorists and commercial drivers, particularly when several in-cab systems compete for attention.

Charles Dawson, Chief Executive Officer of AutoSense, said control design can change how much visual attention a task requires. "A knob or button gives you tactile feedback. Once you know where it is, you can often make an adjustment without taking your eyes off the road," Dawson said.

"With a touchscreen, you may need to find the right menu, see where your finger is landing and check the vehicle has responded. None of those glances may feel particularly dangerous on their own, but they add up," he said.

Attention sharing

Dawson described the issue as part of a wider pattern known as attention sharing, in which a driver repeatedly looks away from the road for short periods. He said those brief glances may not always be recognised as a major distraction, even though attention is divided.

"Distraction doesn't always look like somebody scrolling on their phone. It can be repeated, very short glances between the road and a screen, navigation prompt or work alert. The driver may never look away long enough to recognise it as a major distraction, but their attention is still being divided. It comes back to attention on task - or off task. If it is diverted elsewhere in the cabin, it is not fully on driving. There is no such thing as a 'good' distraction," Dawson said.

AutoSense linked that pattern to in-cab monitoring systems used by some fleet operators. Guardian Generation 3, developed by Seeing Machines, uses camera-based gaze tracking to identify where a driver is looking rather than relying mainly on head position.

The system issues an in-cab alert when a driver looks away from the road for a cumulative 10 seconds within a rolling 30-second period. If the driver looks back at the road for more than two seconds, the timer resets, and the events are recorded for later review by the driver's employer.

The technology is based on gaze-tracking work also used in aviation to measure pilot attention. Dawson said accuracy matters because drivers are less likely to trust warnings that do not match what is happening in the cab.

"An alert has to mean something. If it accurately identifies that your attention has moved away from driving, it gives you the opportunity to correct it before the situation escalates," he said.

Design pressure

The survey comes as international vehicle safety frameworks give more attention to how core controls are arranged inside the cabin. Euro NCAP's 2026 protocols assess the placement, clarity and ease of use of essential vehicle controls, including whether physical buttons are provided for commonly used functions.

For fleet operators, the findings also raise questions about whether company systems and work processes contribute to distraction. Some operators have changed the timing and delivery of dispatch messages and job notifications after data showed those prompts were repeatedly pulling drivers' eyes from the road.

That shifts some responsibility away from individual driver behaviour alone and towards how tasks are organised. In commercial settings, drivers may be managing navigation tools, dispatch systems, work tablets and other alerts at the same time.

"It isn't always a case of blaming the driver. If the way work is being delivered is repeatedly pulling a driver's eyes from the road, the operator has an opportunity and a responsibility to redesign that process," Dawson said.

The preferred-controls question was answered by 473 respondents, suggesting support for physical interfaces extended beyond those already using touchscreens. The figures indicate a broad preference for controls that can be operated with less need for visual confirmation.

"Technology can improve safety, but only when it is designed around how people actually drive. Whether it's the controls built into a car or the systems an employer asks a driver to use, keeping eyes on the road has to come first," Dawson said.