I don't think variants of this are particularly uncommon, at least in newer cars -- on my Honda Insight, I can hold down a button on my steering wheel to activate Siri.
(Personally, I don't think I find CarPlay any more distracting than any other in-dash screen; I'm not looking down at the car's built-in navigation system any more than I'm looking at Apple Maps on the same screen. But, I also tend to listen to podcasts while driving, so once they're playing and the map destination is set I rarely have much impulse to fiddle with things.)
(Personally, I don't think I find CarPlay any more distracting than any other in-dash screen; I'm not looking down at the car's built-in navigation system any more than I'm looking at Apple Maps on the same screen. But, I also tend to listen to podcasts while driving, so once they're playing and the map destination is set I rarely have much impulse to fiddle with things.)