Why wouldn't the safe thing be to reach out from the steering wheel with one of the fingers of your right hand, and move the little slider thing on the wiper switch to increase the wipe speed?
You know, like on my appallingly primitive 1998 Range Rover, or pretty much anything from the same era?
They meet crash standards, yes. But the interior design of them encourages unsafe driving. Between putting almost everything inside a touch screen and pushing autopilot (which encourages drivers to pay attention less), they are creating more distractions from controlling their 2-ton metal boxes.
Drivers are licensed operators of heavy machinery that travels at high speed. Let's not encourage systems that turn us into more dangerous operators.
If they were "death traps" the stats would have them as the most dangerous cars on the road rather than one of the safest (in terms of deaths per mile). The grandparent was speaking absolute nonsense.