Understanding the origins of various terms or items that we use on a regular basis does give us a completely different perspective and one such item is the dashboard on a vehicle. Now, it just seems to make virtually no sense whatsoever for it to be called this, but then that is because you do not know where it stemmed from.
To get the answer, we have to go back to before the time of the car because it actually comes from a horse and carriage. Basically, the guy that was steering the horses would tend to have all kinds of horrible stuff thrown up at him, so it was decided that there had to be something done to stop it from happening. As a result, they used a piece of wooden board to block the debris or, as it was put across at the time, to stop anything being ‘dashed up’ and so the idea of the ‘dashboard’ was born.
You see, sometimes the answer is far more straightforward and easier to understand than you would have perhaps previously thought.