Methods and systems for reducing driver distraction and situation non-awareness related to a dialogue of an automated dialogue system in a vehicle. For a dialogue policy learning session, driver distraction is introduced as an input into a penalty assigner that assesses dialogue quality, and dialogue acts are extended to include dialogues and dialogue act presentation styles which reduce driver workload related to dialogues. The automated dialogue system policy is developed during the learning process by optimizing the penalties, an that automated dialogue workload is reduced in response to increased workload or anticipated workload on the driver. Methods and systems are presented for responding to both actual workload in regular vehicles as well as anticipated workload in autonomous vehicles.