no messege while driving?!

Nope, I don't know bout any workarounds, but I share your utter confusion about why it is better to stare at the button as the song and artist scrolls by vs. seeing it all at once??????

 

Eh, it's like the NAV "I Agree" & Destinations or the BT phone book. Standard lawyer safety. The NAV you can get away with (at least entering destinations), but the rest you have to live with at the moment.

 

there is a hardware mod where you interrupt a speed input to the mfd for bluetooth that also will free up the radio messages

 

And what get's me is ....this IS a message...just not a helpful one! :wacko:
We've seen it too and deem it definitely weird.

 

The NAV hard-wire override is different than the Bluetooth hard-wire override. Both interrupt speed pulses, but on two different wires. The NAV override can be done using key presses, so the hard-wire mod is not necessary. However, the Bluetooth/radio message override must be done as a hard-wire mod.

 

Standard incompetent lawyer logic is what it is. Please do me a favor. If any of you get in a crash, be sure to blame it on the fact that your were trying to read the name of a song and then get a good plaintiff's attorney. That may be what it takes for Toyota to get a clue. It makes no sense why this would be done for legal reasons.

If rds is going to be safely provided, it needs to be large, complete and precise (not flashing parts of words at a time as in my Nissan Murano). Its when you have to stare at the screen for more than a split second to read it that it becomes dangerous. If the information was just there, easy to quickly read, it would be no more dangerous than looking to see the fuel consumption or the radio station.

 

This feature and the disclaimer are intended to protect Toyota more from being liable for the injuries of someone who was hit by the driver who was distracted by playing with the NAV or audio systems than from a suit by the negligent operator.

 

That would work for the driver who ignores the warning, but not for the innocent bystander who is injured. A non Prius driver/owner plaintiff can and will argue that Toyota did not do enough to protect him or her from harm by only having a disclaimer which Toyota knew would be ignored. By blocking such distractions while driving, Toyota has a fairly solid defense from liability to an injured third party.

 

But the point is that Toyota does not block the distractions. I creates distractions through the other features of the mfd and the amount of effort it takes a person to see what they actually want to see.

The energy screen, for example, is constantly changing and you have to look carefully at which way the arrows are pointing to decipher it. Worsening the seriousness of the distraction, the display changes whenever you do something that naturally increases your chances of an accidents (hitting the brakes, letting off the gas, speeding up). How is this not distracting as compared to displaying the name of a song?

 

How about we not talk too much about what is already distracting that is worse than the lockout msg, lest we get the whole display locked out on the next model?

 

Where can one read about the hardwire mod for Bluetooth??

This will bore SOMEONE, but Bluetooth was the nickname for Danish King Harald Blatand, who in the 10th Century tried to unite his part of the world during a conflict in 960 AD. The modern Bluetooth, of course, intends to unite various devices in wireless range.