Dashboard-Symbol Plan Sets Off Warning Signals

From Washington Post

Vehicles were much simpler when the current standard was put in place in 1967. Then, the systems drivers paid attention to were windshield wipers, the heater, the radio, and the fuel gauge; they weren't getting much feedback from what was happening under the hood. Under the current rule, manufacturers can use a combination of 29 words, symbols and abbreviations to communicate with drivers.

Since then, of course, the complexity of vehicles has increased dramatically and so has the messaging to drivers and the controls they have to keep track of. Marketing also plays a role. BMW, for instance, has models that use a single remote control in the console -- a system called iDrive -- that generates eye-level displays with multiple functions, allowing the driver to change the heat pattern in seats or play a CD.

"In vehicles there are more and more sophisticated things to look at and control," said Stephen Kratzke, NHTSA's associate administrator for rulemaking. "What does it mean when the light comes on? We're saying you have to use these symbols."

Instead of trying to create larger standardised vocabularies for drivers, why aren't these people trying to make driving a bit simpler? Why is it accepted that driving a car has to get more and more complicated and feature rich. Cutting down on the number of things you need to keep track of whilst driving would be a lot safer than trying to standardise on 160 icons to be used on all dashboards.

And I would be very grateful if anyone can point me to a site where I can actually look at the proposed icon set as I have had no luck in tracking them down (The nhtsa.dot.gov site doesn't even seem to be alive).