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Whether you're a parent trying to maintain control of unruly kids on a road trip or a backseat passenger trying to impress your new beau's parents on the way to dinner, communication from the car's front seat to the backseat is the worst. Usually, kids pay even less attention than normal to what their parents are saying, and backseat adults have to lean forward and concentrate furiously to catch the driver's words. In the worst cases, drivers may turn around to repeat something they've said, taking their eyes off the road and increasing the risk of traffic accidents.

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Toyota's Driver Easy Speak feature is a shockingly simple fix to this problem. All drivers have to do is press a button on the dashboard screen, and built-in microphones pick up everything they say. That, in turn, is piped straight through the backseat speakers, amplifying the driver's voice and making it easier for passengers to hear (and harder for kids to pretend they didn't).

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The feature first rolled out in the 2015 Toyota Sienna, and is now available in a number of Toyota models. It's a simple solution that's making driving just a little more comfortable.

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