disabling technology and accessibility technology.

I use the built-in call functions and do not find talking on the phone using the hands-free call technology distracts my attention from driving. I think it would be hard-pressed to establish that using such technology distracts drivers to the point of danger, above and beyond "non-device driving" (however defined).

When I was in graduate school, I had some peers in IO Psych working for a professor who was on contract with DOD (they had better fellowship pay than I) -- they were examining eye-movements during driving. What I recall is that there was a critical length of time the eyes could move away from the road and back to the road. I don't recall the length, but say that it was 0.5s. It was pretty clear data -- eyes away from the road for > 0.5s led to missed signals from environmental inputs or anticipating changing status, regardless of what the activity was (tuning radio, lighting a cigarette, looking at rider, finding change, etc.) and regardless of the intensity of the environment (e.g., heavy traffic with lots of changes versus low traffic). Eyes away for < .05s did not see an increase in missed inputs nor anticipation. There's more to it, but that's the basic gist and 0.5s is not the critical value, I'm just using it for example. I got fairly interested because of the very sophisticated dynamic system modeling.

So, you're correct in the sense that anything that takes peoples' eyes & attention (a much more slippery concept) away from the road is a potential distraction. It seems reasonable to add some qualifier like, "for longer than half-second."

HTown touches on this dilemma, I think. Drunk driving is a state of impairment that is present at all times. Distracted driving is is a state of impairment that is present at intervals. Essentially any driving with any thing that pulls eyes for longer than that is distracted driving. That's not a very useful definition and would be impossible to legislate. This is why I've always struggled with tying it down to a specific device/activity in the car.

Technology can help sense some of the signals of distracted driving (e.g., lane drifting) or missing sudden environmental inputs (e.g., auto-braking). Technology can also help integrate communications into the driver's experience without pulling eyes (e.g., voice commands).

What would be better still is for people to de-prioritize non-emergency related instant communication; that's not a legislation issue but a societal one.

I hate texting and driving as much as the next guy, but some of the car automations are fine.

Lots of cars will read the text to you and transcribe what you say back

Current research thinks that texting and other phone activities are using different cognitive territory than conversation with a passenger or operating the car controls. That territory may overlap with or interfere with the brain matter used in driving.

I don't believe they've reached definitive conclusions yet and there's a lot of research to do, but one example: Siri is commonly assumed to solve the problem but it probably doesn't.

Will be moot in five years anyway once automated driving takes hold, but cultural change is needed. Texting while driving needs to be looked at by teenagers like drunk driving increasingly is.

for a careless and dangerous behavior that's been normalized. That it's less dangerous than regular texting doesn't make it fine. We should be looking at tech solutions to make it harder to text and drive (as suggested in Bruno's post below), not easier.

If people absolutely need to be able to text while driving, though, I guess it amounts to an improvement. I'd be happy with just minimal enforcement of the phone usage while driving laws on the books. Standing on a street corner and seeing the number of passing drivers looking down or to the side is a jaw dropping experience.

Talk about distracting. And far worse than built-in navigation systems are people using their phones as navigation devices. I know it is necessary (I do it), but it is far more dangerous than in-car voice-to-text capability.

I find the lane departure alert while on ramps and sensor failure warnings for the pre-collision system in heavy rain more distracting than using the voice controls. And since it's a limited set of instructions, and leaves my hands on the wheel and my eyes on the road, it is less man machine interface distracting than tuning the old dial or push button radio. The instruction set is more concise than "Honey, can you put a different station on?" Now, there may be some higher "non-human" communications cerebral load involved compared to conversing with a seat mate, and you don't have the second set of "Hey watch out " eyes, but I've found the voice controls (and or the single button presets) to be less distracting than the manual controls for the cockpit of my older cars)
The one automation I've been trying and am about to ditch is the high beams. I think I can do a better job than that thing.