When Your Car's Touchscreen Dies, It's Not Just Annoying. It's a Safety Problem

Your car’s touchscreen isn’t just Spotify and maps anymore. In a lot of newer trucks and SUVs, that screen runs the backup camera, HVAC, defrost, drive modes, and settings that used to live on real knobs and switches. When the screen freezes or goes black, it can feel like the vehicle just lost a key layer of “roadworthiness.”

This isn’t rare, either. A recent Spotlight on America report on touchscreen malfunctions and safety concerns tied the problem to a simple reality: once critical controls move into a screen...