Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are less distracting than the default systems

Android Auto and Apple CarPlay may claim to cause fewer distractions than other factory-installed systems, according to the AAA (American Automobile Association) Foundation for Traffic Safety

Over the years, cars have become more and more a technological machine, full of gadgets, touch screens, or even equipped with safety systems as advanced as using a fingerprint to start the vehicle, things that were only seen as humor in fiction films like James Bond, but that we never thought could arrive so quickly as they are.

Communication, of course, in the 21st century, is the obsession of the modern world, especially since internet use has spread to our phones. The need to stay constantly in contact with others, the ease of the process, and the distractions this can cause at the wheel, led the two major phone software companies (Apple and Android) to develop their own Apps, to combine phone use with driving safely and responsibly and thus reduce the number of incidents caused by them.

Before continuing, if you don’t yet know the features of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, we invite you to read our article where we talk about them.

The AAA (Foundation for Traffic Safety), through several studies carried out with the collaboration of the University of Utah on five cars from different brands: Honda Ridgeline, Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Silverado, Kia Optima and Ram 1500, have determined that the Android Auto and Apple CarPlay systems perform the tasks requested by the user faster than the software built into the brands’ own cars, referring especially to features such as the navigation system or making phone calls.

The organization states that performing complex tasks using Android Auto and Apple CarPlay is faster than doing so with the car’s own software. For example, making a call was 24% faster using the Apps (that is, 5 seconds faster), and opening navigation to set a new destination was 31% faster (15 seconds) than using the software integrated by the brands themselves, not to mention the voice assistant, which works better and better in the apps and which most models do not incorporate into their own software.

It may seem little, but 5 seconds or 15 seconds in a risky situation make a world of difference, and can determine the difference between life and death or the prevention of an accident, however minor. Distractions at the wheel are responsible, in the USA alone, for 390,000 injuries a year and more than 3,500 deaths.

Perhaps it is time to start taking these driver-assistance systems a bit more seriously, which, for the moment, are completely free.