The screens they are increasingly present in our lives and obviously they are present even in cars. But if they were previously exclusive to higher-end models, they are now widespread across all lines and have increasingly important tasks.
This doesn’t please Euro NCAPbody that deals with certify the safety of cars through protocols in order to offer third-party and impartial information to consumers: screens inside cars would lead to a risk for drivers becoming a source of distraction.
Indeed, from January 2026 New standards will be introduced to achieve the five-star safety rating. A car to excel in the evaluation will have to have necessarily physical controls for direction indicators, hazard lights, windshield wipers, horn and emergency call.
The director of strategic development at Euro NCAP, Matthew Averyhe has declared: “L’excessive use of displays touch has become a problem for the entire automotive industry, because almost all vehicle manufacturers are moving physical controls to the central display, thus forcing drivers to look away from the road and this can cause accidents due to distraction“.
This decision goes in countertrend with the choices of many manufacturers, who have instead opted to spread touch screens, because they are more familiar to users and because in this way the physical buttons can be eliminated with the consequent cost reductionthanks to the solution of concentrating everything in one place.
Certainly, the Euro NCAP certification is not mandatory, but manufacturers often take it into consideration, because they pay particular attention to safety issues. In fact, Matthew Avery concluded by saying that the new security protocol still exists in the process of being processedbut assures that the new requirements will be available in 2026 and that manufacturers are ready to accept the new directives.
