I went out of my way to install CarPlay in our old ICE car and think it adds safety, especially with maps in an unfamiliar area. Trying to read the map on a 3” wide screen in a cup holder or clipped to an air vent is way worse than on a 7” screen mounted in an easily viewable area.
But "reading a map" is only one thing you do with CarPlay.
People also use it for music, messaging, finding/changing destinations, voice calls, etc.
The CarPlay UI in particular is so inconsistent and unpredictable that I can never just have a routine. Some Siri commands randomly don't work ("I can't do that while you're driving") when they just worked a few minutes before.
Everything you do in a car is a choice. I don’t think CarPlay leads people to riskier choices on average than they’d make without it and makes some things they’re already choosing to do leas risky. (I ack that I don’t have data either.)