Don’t let Siri become a hassle instead of an assistant; keep it quiet in the car to reduce distractions. Hadrian/Shutterstock Even though Car Play makes it safer to use your phone's features while driving, it can still become distracting, like when group chat messages pop up and grab your attention. One of the worst forms of this is Siri audibly interrupting what you're doing.

Hearing the assistant constantly talk over your music, podcast, or in-car conversation with announcements is annoying and potentially dangerous. You might also have issues with it not properly hearing you as you're speaking to it in the car. Thankfully, you can adjust a few settings, particularly how you interact with Siri, in an effort to avoiding wasting time.

You can't completely disable Siri, since Car Play won't work without the feature enabled. However, you can make your Car Play drives smoother by turning off some of the assistant's most obnoxious tendencies. When every distracted second on the road could lead to an accident, tweaking Siri to your liking is an overlooked way to stay safe.

The most important toggle: Driving Focus Den Photos/Shutterstock The best way to hush Siri while you're driving is to use the applicable Focus mode. Focus modes are an extension of Do Not Disturb that suppress notifications depending on your situation, and the Driving mode has special toggles to enable automatically in the car. With this enabled, you'll only see alerts from people you choose, cutting down on interruptions.

To set it up, open Settings and go to Focus. If you don't see Driving, tap the Plus (+) icon at the top-right and add it. Inside the Driving focus, choose People.

For driving, it makes more sense to Allow a short list of people to alert you. When they contact you from any app, including Messages and Whats App, alerts will show as you drive. The toggles below let you control which phone calls notify you in your vehicle.

Contacts Only silences spam calls while driving, or you can limit it to your chosen list with Allowed People Only. Use the Auto-Reply section to set a short message that goes to the group you select if they text you when you're using Car Play. People will know you're busy without you dictating a message as you drive.

Finally, scroll down to tap While Driving and make sure Activate With Car Play is on. The options above this are for cars that don't support Car Play. Now, while in wired or wireless Car Play, you'll see a small car icon underneath the clock, letting you know this Focus is on.

Keep Siri quiet in the car A. Aleksandravicius/Shutterstock Siri's ability to speak notifications is great in the right circumstances, but if it won't shut up about incoming alerts in the car, you can turn this off. Back in Settings on your phone, choose Notifications > Announce Notifications.

If you want to use this feature outside of Car Play, keep the top toggle on and select the Car Play menu. There, disable Announce Messages and Siri won't read anything that comes in during a trip. Back on the Announce Notifications page, you might also want to turn on Reply Without Confirmation.

By default, when you speak a reply, the assistant will read what you said back to you for confirmation before sending. While this helps avoid misspoken messages, it also creates extra steps behind the wheel. Turn this toggle on and sending a reply becomes a single step.

Another way to prevent stoppages with Siri is hidden under Settings > Accessibility > Siri > Require "Siri" for Interruptions on your phone. Normally, Siri will stop what it's saying when it detects you talking back. If your phone is doing this in error because of road noise or other people in the car, enable this option.

Then, Siri won't stop what it's saying unless you say "Siri" to prompt it again. Similarly, if it tends to stop listening because you take too long to think, change Siri Pause Time to Longer or Longest to give yourself more time. Although Siri is required for Car Play, you can sti...