Cars today are like smartphones on wheels. They can be a great convenience for drivers; but have become increasingly relevant to liability when accidents happen. When a crash happens, both plaintiff and defense teams often look beyond “driver error” to the vehicle itself. Yes, every driver has a duty of care on the road. But if a manufacturer designs an interface that predictably pulls attention away, buries critical controls, or skips safer options like lockouts and robust voice control, they can share responsibility. It’s often not either/or; it’s how fault gets allocated. This is oftentimes why certain aspects within the car’s settings cannot be updated until the car is no longer in motion. 

Who’s the Fault Driver? Follow the Data

Infotainment units often keep paired phones, call logs, texts, contacts, GPS history, media playback, app sessions—even screen captures. For an injured plaintiff, those logs can show the other driver was changing music, messaging, or entering navigation right before impact. For a defendant, the same trail can undermine a defense if it shows active screen interaction or a video app in use. The most persuasive evidence includes a human-factors analysis. This allows us to determine how many taps, how many seconds, and essentially how much “eyes-off-the-road” time played a factor in the case. Together, it can be shown that the system allowed risky interaction while the vehicle was in motion. 

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