Infotainment unit assumes you're a dangerous driver!

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ozy

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I find it infuriating that the infotainment unit doesn't allow you to do basic changes while the car is moving. I happen to be travelling with a passenger in the car and the passenger is unable to adjust bluetooth etc simply because the car is moving. In other cars I've always had the option to dismissing the safety screen by claiming "passenger". Today, the passenger couldn't get anything substantive done because of these safeguards. I understand the intentions, but there should be a way to bypass these at your peril.
 
Having had Honda vehicles with similar head unit... there is a way to bypass the speed sensor. It's in hidden menus. I'll have to research it and figure out the steps required.

I used to travel between time zones a couple of times a week. Dove me nuts until I figured out how to change the time zone with the car moving.

I haven't checked, this may be discussed in another thread on here.

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ozy said:
I find it infuriating that the infotainment unit doesn't allow you to do basic changes while the car is moving. I happen to be travelling with a passenger in the car and the passenger is unable to adjust bluetooth etc simply because the car is moving. In other cars I've always had the option to dismissing the safety screen by claiming "passenger". Today, the passenger couldn't get anything substantive done because of these safeguards. I understand the intentions, but there should be a way to bypass these at your peril.
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Which brands allow "passenger" bypassing of greyed-out and non-accessible features while driving. I know that Toyota, Honda, and Subaru all have features inaccessible when when moving, regardless of whether a passenger is operating the unit. There are "work-arounds", but only with special sequences and hidden menus in those brands.
 
What the restrictions force me to do is use the phone instead of the car interface. That results in less safety.
 
I have yet to see a car infotainment system that doesn’t lock features when driving. It’s not done for safety’s sake, it’s done to shield car companies from the frivolous lawsuits that are so popular in the western world.


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Thomas Mitchell said:
I have yet to see a car infotainment system that doesn’t lock features when driving. It’s not done for safety’s sake, it’s done to shield car companies from the frivolous lawsuits that are so popular in the western world.
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On the other hand I've yet to see one that didn't allow you to say "I am a passenger."
 
MNSteve said:
On the other hand I've yet to see one that didn't allow you to say "I am a passenger."
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But page 239 in the Owners Manual says the Voice Recognition system ignores passengers:

Voice Recognition
The voice control system can only be used from the
driver’s seat because the microphone unit removes
noises from the front passenger’s side.
 
The only thing I have run up against that it would not let me do were things that required significant typing. But I am able to put them in by voice. Of course, it is always me in the driver's seat. Most of my passengers are technophobes and couldn't do anything even if the car would let them.

When AA is in control, you can do loads of stuff using the touch screen which a passenger can do.
 
Love everything about the Honda Clarity. But if I was asked what one thing I hate about the car, it's not being able to use most of the features while car is in motion. I've had a 2012 and 2014 Mazda3 and nothing is disabled when car is in motion.
 
Claire Green said:
Love everything about the Honda Clarity. But if I was asked what one thing I hate about the car, it's not being able to use most of the features while car is in motion. I've had a 2012 and 2014 Mazda3 and nothing is disabled when car is in motion.
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Interesting. My wife’s 2015 Mazda 3 locked out much of the touch screen input for settings and nav when under way, as have all my other vehicles. I never bother with a cars built-in voice commands as the menus are typically laborious and the recognition is terrible. Thankfully CarPlay takes care of my needs.


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I agree completely with this thread. This is my biggest complaint with the car.

It falls under the category of "Distracted Driving". It is ridiculous to not have some provision for a passenger to interact (for example with the built-in navigation).

Here is the klinker... I found references to the hidden menu in several other Hondas, and there is a means to disable the "Distracted Driving" features. Unfortunately, disabling them is not persistent (must do it every time you start up or every time you want to use it at least). OK - That's better than nothing right?

I tried this menu (sure enough, the Clarity DOES have this same diagnostic menu) - you can find our how to do it fairly easily. BUT - Unfortunately, the Clarity menu does NOT include an entry to disable distracted driver features.

Not one to give up easily, I started going into every menu item, hoping that it was buried a little deeper. In most cases, when I entered a sub-menu, there was a way out (like cancel, or similar). I got into one menu however where the only choices were YES or NO. The question was a totally esoteric numeric value so I had no idea what the correct answer was. I arbitrarily chose YES. I was shocked to find that the car would no longer boot. I tried all kinds of things with cycling the on/off in different sequences to no avail. I was convinced that I "Bricked" my new car... While trying to determine how I was going to explain this to the dealer, it occurred to me that perhaps disconnecting the battery might perform a hard reset of some kind. In desperation, I tried that. Now the car booted, but I had a host of failure / error messages. Lacking a better idea, I tried driving the car, and happily found that these failures all cleared up, and I have been fine ever since.

Bottom line - I would LOVE to be able to disable this nonsense Distracted Driver stuff. I thought of writing a letter to Honda Corporate, but haven't done it yet. It could be that this is a result of some silly government regulation???

In any event, everyone - please keep your eyes open for a work-around for this. As I said, you have touched a nerve for me, This is my single biggest gripe !!!
 
graure said:
In California, vehicle code 27602(5)(a) disallows the infotainment screen to be there unless it has those lockout features. Honda is just protecting itself against easily foreseeable lawsuits.
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I honestly don't know how I feel about this. I am very strongly against distracted driving. But I also think that the passenger should be able to manipulate these things. This is saying that people will cheat. And that's a given. Unfortunate that we humans are so predictable.
 
guinness10 said:
Now that I know so many people want to be fiddling with the infotainment unit while driving, I’m actually pretty glad Honda has locked this up.
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Wait a minute...
My desire is for the passenger to be able to interact with the navigation.
The Honda answer to this is the voice command system. The voice commands are pretty good, but we have had numerous frustrating experiences where the darned thing just won't understand you, and it would be far easier for the passenger to fix it than to have to pull over somewhere just to enter an address that is not being recognized.
 
Sandroad said:
Which brands allow "passenger" bypassing of greyed-out and non-accessible features while driving. I know that Toyota, Honda, and Subaru all have features inaccessible when when moving, regardless of whether a passenger is operating the unit. There are "work-arounds", but only with special sequences and hidden menus in those brands.
Click to expand...

Older Nissan LEAFS for one... I’ve seen some Fords and other rental cars with that option as well.

-Skip


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