Magellan

Other manufacturers lock their nav system too, Nissan for example. Frankly, with steering wheel radio controls now so common where you never have to take your eyes off the road to operate the radio, locking the head unit controls is not such a bad idea. Eventually, with hands free bluetooth telephone connections and voice commands for CD’s etc., we’re well on our way to safer driving. Now if we could only get those kids to behave in the back seat.

jdanon

I agree. It's only a matter of time before everything is locked down. Lexus is ahead of the curve I guess in that regard, though there are lots of other things that annoy me about the navigation and audio system. The rest of the car to me is pretty close to perfect which is why I stick with Lexus.

Bass Mech

i really dont care if it voids the warranty, i only keep cars about 2 years anyway and if i have to take it in i can reverse what i did in a way they would never be able to tell anything was done in the first place.
i never felt like i was chancing disaster in my acura based on the fact i can program it by VOICE ALONE!!! never taking my hands from the wheel and never looking at the screen.
they made the suystem voice activated, so why not use the technology already in place, lock the screen but at least allow me to program it by voice.

Evitzee

It's been well documented that it's the act of talking on the phone that is the problem, not the holding of the phone. It's the mind interaction of talking with the person on the other end that is dangerous. The phone industry works behind the scenes to make sure banning of phone use while driving doesn't take place.

I work for one of the largest corporations with operations all over the world, some of it in road transport of finished goods. About 5 years ago they came out with a corporate policy that NO cell phones can be used if you are driving a vehicle for the pure distraction of it and the effect on safety. No ifs, ands or buts. In that time I've seen zero acts of people breaking this rule. Why would you, your livelihood is at stake. Even though driving is a relatively small exposure for the corporation in total, road accidents are the primary cause of fatalities for the reason that there are so many distractions while driving. If you are welding pipe, doing electrical work, or sitting in a control center running operations you can focus your attention on the job at hand, but with driving there are so many streams of data coming at you with unknown consequences that the distraction of talking on the phone for business or personal use is just something that often overloads the system.

We all think we are smart enough to do all this multitasking, yet we don't seem to have any problem in killing over 40,000 people a year in vehicle accidents in this country. Many of these are due to driver distractions; fiddling with the audio and Nav system, picking up something off the floor, yelling at the kids, and yes, talking on the phone. We've compensated for some of the realatively poor road craft shown by American drivers by sticking them in bigger and bigger vehicles, but that can't go on forever. In the end we are all responsible for our actions, and their consequences. Play nice.

Bass Mech

i can honestly say that talking on the cell phone while in my hand is far more distracting than using a HF kit, for me as i drive while talking my attention goes to driving, many times when i am talking on the phone the other party will ask if i am still there because i didnt respond to the question. i didnt respond because i needed to focus on driving and tuned out the conversation. perhaps others are unable to do this, perhaps they dont want to place the correct attention to the correct task while driving.
so i formally disagree, however since everyone is different you definitly have to cater to the masses, not everyone can talk and drive at the same time, everyone is wired differently
for example when i take a phone message i cannot write anything quickly and be able to read it after the call. i have to stop talking in order to write anything. i can type no problem, but cannot take shorthand while talking on the phone, however i can tune out a conversation and focus on driving, everyone has strengths and weakenesses

socalJD

Bad example. The only thing Honda/Acura does differently than Toyota/Lexus is allow you to enter destinations on the Nav while moving. They don't even allow an option for Dvd video playback (on the Nav screen), and their hardware is proprietary so you can't simply add a Dvd playback source. The memory seats work the same as Lexus, once you shift out of Park, the buttons won't work. Since I have both (Acura & Lexus), you just learn to work within the parameters of the systems. . .

Magellan

But you CAN program in destinations by voice commands while moving in your Lexus. So what's the problem?

Bass Mech

correct me if i am wrong, i havnt read the entire owners manuel but so far, i can only look for resturants, it will show icons and you can select one as a destination but you cannot see a list of the resturants unless your stopped. i used this feature a lot on the acura, look for mexican scroll through the list and fine one i want to go to, you also cannot view the information of any of the resturants to call one and see how long of a wait there is unless your stopped.

now assuming im right about only being able to search for a resturant, how about hotels? many times while taking a road trip we like to go and not make any plans, just plug in a destination and start driving, when we are hungry we look for nearby resturants, when tired we look for a hotel and call while in route to see if they have any vacant rooms available, i usually search by city in a city we will be driving through in say the next 20 minutes.
while you can pick an icon in a particular area you cannot get any info on it unless you enter it as a destination while moving.
in the acura i could scroll through the list and have the navigation send the number to the bluetooth like the lex does and dial the number, unfortunatly the lex wont allow you to do this while moving, can you tell me otherwise?

bagwell

+1

I don't get why more people don't input the destinations this way.

jdanon

Because when you say show me "Mexican restaurants" for example you end up with gas stations or something unintended. Voice recognition is like real time traffic: a great idea, but not all the way there yet. Ever try putting in a destination by voice? Between going through each part of the address one by one (after the beep, please say the... planet, hemisphere, country, state, city, road, address, etc.) and hoping the voice recognition understands you on the first attempt I'd say it's probably much easier and faster to just type it in. A lot less frustrating too.

kensteele

wow, you guys are still arguing this...wow, it's seem like for nearly a couple of years now....wow!

istundra

iTrader: (2)

LOL!

Can we just revert them to the previously discussed threads about this topic?

Magellan

OK, you now see you were wrong regarding voice recognition for destinations. Now you want to save face by narrowing it down to restaurants, etc. It seems you just want to argue.

I see you just join CL this month so perhaps you haven’t read the countless threads on nav hacking. Please review them (it may take a while) and you’ll get both supportive and negative (from us dummies) arguments to your hearts content. Join in, I'm sure they're not closed. For me, I’m tired of it, so I’m out of here.

IS350jet

You obviously have no clue about the point I was trying to make. Is it really that difficult to reach down and move the power seat up/down, forward/back while in motion? Do you absolutely HAVE to adjust the seat with a memory preset?

lobuxracer

iTrader: (2)

I totally get why they lock out the driver's seat. It could certainly have a dramatic effect on the driver's ability to control the car. I can't for the life of me understand why they do the same for the passenger. For example - I programmed one of the buttons to lay the seat back for napping while riding shotgun on a long trip. When you drive long distance only stopping for fuel, there are times when you start the leg sitting upright and want to recline to rest then return to the upright position. Why shouldn't I be able to do that with presets? Call me lazy, but what's the point of having them if they don't deliver the thing they're meant to do while in motion?

[ASIDE]Of course, the next phase for this is restricting the seat adjustments. Imagine what will happen when someone with the seat fully reclined gets into an accident, gets injured or killed because they are "out of position," and sues an automaker for allowing the seat to put them out of position. I'm still amazed at how many people put their feet on the dash, right on top of the airbag. It's only a matter of time until this is also legislated into some kind of restriction.[/ASIDE]

Also - the no CallerID for an incoming call is idiotic. They don't want me to look at the nav screen for the caller info. Great. So I take my hand off the wheel, pick up the phone, focus on a much smaller screen, and determine who is calling before I press the button on the steering wheel to answer the call. How is that safer? I can't figure that out either.

Again, Lexus need to address these issues before I buy another unit from them. I'll be happy to buy aftermarket until then for more features while in motion, lower cost, cheaper updates, and more timely information.

All the whining about attention management is just that. Whining. Either you CAN manage your attention, or you can't. If you can't your insurance company will quickly adjust your rates to reflect your skill level. Requiring intervention to active features is a distraction. I AGREE is completely unnecessary. Just turn the unit on. I don't ever recall having an I AGREE screen on any of the Nav Aids we used on our WC-135s. Legislating this stuff is idiotic, but typical of our competing philosophies of what government should and shouldn't do for people.