An organisation that provides safety ratings for cars sold in Europe. Its ratings have no legal force but carmakers use them as a selling-point.
From January 2026 new Euro NCAP rules mean no car can receive a full five-star safety score unless certain crucial functions—indicators, windscreen wipers and the like—are controlled by real, physical switches rather than touchscreens. The change reflects growing evidence that touchscreens distract drivers. A 2022 test by Vi Bilägare, a Swedish motoring magazine, found that tasks taking about ten seconds in a car with physical buttons took up to 45 seconds in the worst-performing touchscreen model. A 2024 study by SINTEF, a Norwegian research organisation, found that even the quickest touchscreen task—changing the temperature—meant three and a half seconds of not looking at the road; entering a satnav address took 16 seconds. An analysis published in 2020 by the Transport Research Laboratory, a British organisation, found that touchscreens impaired reaction time more than driving over the legal alcohol limit.
The difference between art and science is that science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else.