If you have Android Auto in your car, you’re in luck: it is one of the infotainment systems with the most compatible applications and that supports the most customization. And if we talk about changing the appearance, it is not always a matter of finding the configuration that we like the most, since it is also important to know what settings are going to make using your driving assistant safer. Precisely from the point of view of security there are an important adjustment so that we take our hands off the steering wheel less to touch the screen depending on usean action that not only can involve a road accident, but is also subject to a fine.
Because yes, according to article 76 of the Law on Traffic, Motor Vehicle Circulation and Road Safetyare considered “serious infractions, when they do not constitute a crime (…) driving manually using mobile phone devices in conditions other than those above, drive manually using navigators or any other means or communication system.“In other words, if you are caught touching the Android Auto screen, you could be fined in full force by the law.
Because it is a reality: taking your hand off the steering wheel (or other driving elements such as the gear lever) for a few seconds and possibly also taking your eyes off to check where you are touching, can mean have an accident as a result of carelessness or simply that something appears on the road that we cannot avoid. Here using Google Assistant for Android Auto is the safest option, configuring the main thing before going on a trip is what I also do to touch it as little as possible but sooner or later some touch falls off.
In this sense, a good practice is to change the order of the applications so that the ones we use the most come out first. The idea is that touches are done as soon as possible, because a second of distraction at 100 kilometers/hour implies almost 28 meters of movement with little attention. And another important adjustment to lift your hands off the steering wheel less is to bring what we change the most closer to the area closest to the driver. In Coolwalk, several windows are displayed on the screen, leaving by default the left as the main screen closest to the person driving the navigation app and the right as the secondary multimedia screen.
This is a personal question but in my case, since I always drive with music, a problem arose: while it is rare for me to touch the navigation application (which, as I explained above, I configure before leaving on a trip), I do usually use musical controls relatively frequently, which involves those potentially dangerous touches by taking your hand off the wheel. But luckily in Android Auto Coolwalk, that can be changed.
What do you prefer to have closer: Maps or media
To carry out this adjustment, the first thing we will do is connect the phone to the car and open Android Auto in the vehicle console.
Once inside, we will tap on the settings icon (the gear wheel) and on ‘Screen‘ > ‘Change layout‘ and two options will appear there: ‘Multimedia closer to the driver’ either ‘Navigation closer to the driver‘. Now it is a matter of putting what we touch the most closer to us.
The good thing is that despite moving to the right, The navigation app continues to be the one that takes up the most spacewith all the sense in the world, since it is the one we need the most visual information about.
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In Xataka Android | Six important Android Auto settings that I recommend configuring as soon as possible