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6-Year-Old Says Grand Theft Auto Taught Him To Drive
nandemoari writes "A six-year-old who recently stole his parents' car and drove it into a utility pole has passed the buck onto a familiar scapegoat: the video game, Grand Theft Auto.
Rockstar Games' controversial Grand Theft Auto video game has been criticized by parent groups and crusaders (or in the eyes of gamers, nincompoops) like former lawyer Jack Thompson for years (Thompson once tried to link the Virginia Tech slayings to late-night Counterstrike sessions. He's since been disbarred). However, not as of yet has anyone under the age of, oh, ten, blamed the game for a car theft."
Let's put the blame squarely where it lies... on the stupid freakin' parents who were letting a 6-year-old play GTA!
It doesn't take that much effort to monitor your kids. But it does mean saying no and standing up to their whining and crying. It does mean dealing with the inconvenience of not being able to always do what you want to do and having to spend some time actively engaging them.
If this kid was playing GTA, then there should be additional charges filed against his parents.
Start a happiness pandemic
Now you can blame plane crashes on Flight Simulator!
The parents had car keys where the six year old could get them?
With kids, everything is on high security lockdown. Especially when young.
I'll bet his was surprised when the pole didn't just fly out the way gracefully, thank goodness ho found a pole before a hooker.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No mention of how many hookers he had blow him and then subsequently ran over.
Bad parenting.
How many kids used to grow up emulating old western movies?
What about the Rocky movies?
Footloose?
Most of the time, decent parents stop the children before they act out gun fights, boxing matches, and tractor chicken.
Stop blaming your environment and start taking responsibility for yourselves!
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
The real story is somewhat sadder. Dad went to work, kid missed school bus, Mom was asleep (and the boy didn't want to miss breakfast & P.E. at school) so he tried to drive himself in Mom's car. Police asked him how he did it and he told them he stood next to the wheel and steered with one hand. Then when asked how he knew how to drive, he answered, Grand Theft Auto. It sounds like this came mostly from being hungry. Both parents I understand have been charged with felonys related to this.
I take it he did well pressing W or S repeatedly to hotwire the car then
Associated Press
Thanks for reading TRFA -- looks like you're almost right. It wasn't just GTA, either:
The boy told police he learned to drive playing Grand Theft Auto and Monster Truck Jam video games.
Ironically, on the directly linked TFA:
Here's hoping that the parents who allowed a child to see (let alone play) Grand Theft Auto will attract more attention that the award-winning video game (which anyone will admit, should only be played by adults).
Yeah, good job. Your pre-emptive, kneejerk, anti-Jack-Thompson interpretation has already drawn more attention to both Jack and GTA than the original article did.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
... GTA also taught him that you can drive through lampposts, notice that he avoided the trees.
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I would love for this to go to court and have them use this GTA defense. I totally agree. GTA is a danger to kids. We should keep it away from kids.
That being said, keep it the fuck away from kids.
My dad used to work at walmart for his retirement job and he would tell parents he wasn't going to sell them M rated games if they had little kids with them. The management backed him on it too.
Everyone who works in retail has an obligation to let parents know that games have ratings. There is such a thing as games for adults.
They're using their grammar skills there.
I tried blaming backing the car down a hill on Pole Position when I was a kid, didnt work then I really doubt this will work now.
Are they assuming here that a 6-year-old who had never played GTA would not have crashed his parents' car? Seriously, a driving 6-year-old is bound to get into an accident no matter what games he has played.
Seek and ye shall find.
The summary associates this story with Jack Thompson's disbarment, which is irrelevant. Should we continue to expect such childish guilt-by-association from Slashdot, in place of reasoned argument?
I have no great love of video games, but I really don't see the sense in spinning this story into an anti-gaming message. The kid learned something useful by playing video games. How is that bad?
Okay, six-years-old, not exercising the best of judgment, but what if the scenario was different? Say that his mom was unloading groceries when the car slipped out if gear and rolled back crushing and pinning her against a wall. The kid then uses his acquired skills to drive the car forward, saving her life. What would the spin be then?
GTA doesn't show the fundamentals of driving a car but it is a simulator of cars driving. Seeing common road signs, keeping to the right, the very basics anyway and I'm sure this is what the kid meant. He learned the rest from watching his parents as he knows where his mom keeps the keys and how to use them. You can't learn much more from pressing X and Square on a controller.
What some people forget while they get on their screw Jack Thompson rants is that the kid is 6! He's in kindergarten or maybe grade 1! Where was your mom when you were going to kindergarten? Mine was holding my hand walking me to school every frigging day. Naps came second if she had any at all. Most parents will be standing with their kids making damn sure that they get on that bus and usually will be waiting at the end of the day making sure they come home as well.
This wouldn't be getting the reaction that it is if the kid said Grand Turismo or nothing at all but because he said GTA we get this. Of course now Ford will have a new marking angle for the Taurus. The number one vehicles chosen by 6 year olds.
If the car had been a manual shift this wouldnt have happened.
It's more realistic than the god-awful simulator we had in Drivers' Ed in 1979.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I plan on using the Team Fortess defense when I next use a baseball bat on someone.
For getting a car that is driven with an analog stick and/or a D-pad
If he had learned how to drive in GTF, he would have ran into a prostitute.
In GTA the player never sees or simulates the use of the real controls used to drive; you use a joystick or controller to play. You are never made aware of the real controls; like an ingnition, steering wheel, gas pedal or break pedal. This kid learned to drive either by watching any number of TV shows that give a lot more information about the act of driving or by watching his parents. He is talking about GTA because he knows its the way to increase his 15 minutes of fame (or infamy) and get the kind of attention that he obviously doesn't get a home from his parents.
No it didn't, He crashed. That's pretty much the first thing you are expected not to do when you learn to drive. In fact, I'd say that "not crashing" is the essence of driving. Silly boy. Moron parents.
I had my first threesome at age 5. It was all because I played the shit out of Leisure Suit Larry and felt I needed to take it to the next level. My parents wanted to sue Sierra but back then they couldn't find a lawyer willing to take the case. What a shame Jack Thompson was too busy going after radio DJ's in those days.
Honestly, where do you take the car from park to drive in GTA. And where do you push down on the gas pedal and brake in GTA. The kid "learned" that cars get their impulse from people, but clearly, he did not learn how to drive in GTA. If that's the case, he has also learned how to take the safety off of a weapon, and how to load a magazine, and clear the weapon. C'mon. I really don't appreciate the way conclusions can be drawn based on what ever the reporter wants it to sound like. It's just a load of dung. By the way, I doubt he learned how to get dressed watching GTA...
I always wanted to drive when I was six but never could manage it. This kid is a go getter and show great management potential. A real go getter in a down economy. Keep up the good work kid.
-Your fans from PS. 92 New York.
The usual case would be "GTA made me want to drive dangerously, commit crime, etc.". He is not claiming that the game affected his motivation to take the car, just taught him how to do it.
If only the car was manual (I believe you refer to it as a 'stick shift' on the other side of the pond) you wouldn't have had this problem. Why won't the government ban automatic transmissions? Won't somebody think of the children?!
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
Poor videogame choice strikes again. If the kid had been given appropriate games where the key focus is driving (Burnout, Gran Turismo) or that freeware Japanese delivery game Rider he would have realised the tedium and complexity inherent in driving...
Remember - give your kids APPROPRIATE games.
> Let's put the blame squarely where it lies... on the stupid freakin' parents who were letting a 6-year-old play GTA!
That's terrible. Next thing he'll stop paying his hookers.
My family was so poor that if I wanted to play GTA I had to steal a real car.
Actually the blame is more complex. I agree that bad parenting is normally the main cause in cases where behaviour gets blamed on video games. But that doesn't mean games are blameless. I think almost everyone here would agree that advertsising works. If it didn't, why the hell do people waste billions on it? I've been reading 'the advertised mind' which is a book on how advertising works at the brain chemistry level. it's fascinating stuff. Basically you have zero defence against ads, because the information from ads already registers in your brain and strengthens certain synapses long before the higher areas of your brain decide not to pay it attention. Essentially, you just don't have the option to reject what you see, because the emotional fear-response 'early warning' section of your brain already kicks in first to check its not something urgent.
Anyway, what I'm getting at, is that everything you see and hear affects you. If you see certain activities portrayed on a regular basis, and do not get a corresponding physical pain response, then your brain cannot help but normalise those activities at a subconscious level. As n urban westerner, I don't get scared when I see tigers and bears, because those are things that I just see on Tv or in cartoon, but it's a different story if you are a kid in Nepal thats run like fuck from a real tiger.
My (somewhat strange) point, is that a six year old kid hasn't been in a car crash, he hasn't been hurt in a car, he hasnt seen a car crash or know anyone thats been in one. His only knowledge about car crashes is they are fun things that happen when he plays a game. Because he doesn't have the experience of the real world phenomena, he is in no position to develop a sensible approach to his actions here.
So the ultimate blame is dumbass parents that let a six year old kid play a game like GTA, but lets not kid ourselves that video games don't affect them. All video games affect everyone who play them. They change our behaviour and our attitudes. The older you are, the more real-life experience you have, the less pronounced this behavioural change will be (your behaviours are already more established). But young kids playing violent video games is not a good idea.
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I learned to drive at six, might have been seven. That old automatic station wagon of my uncles was a great thing, he even taught me the finer points of proper parking, and parking on hills. My parents on the other hand, had taught me how to drive a stick not long after, but I'd already figured it out on my own by watching their feet and how they shift, as well as listening to the engine. If I'd been able to reach the peddles I could have driven either car without much of a problem.
I guess it's one of those old things, both my parents, my uncle and most of my family either grew up on farms or lived on farms at one time or another. Came with the life, you learned what you needed to do to get through the day. This however, seems to be a blame game. Bad parenting? I'd say no parenting. Just another example of an adult dropping their kid in front of the TV and walking away. I'd say child, but obviously they didn't try to go that far.
Om, nomnomnom...
my 5 year old was playing GTA and HALO, last year... now he's in 1st grade ahead of schedule. Kindergarten lasted 4 months. with a parent sitting behind or beside a child, games and movies can be used as educational tools... no matter how 'adult' they may seem there's something that is learned from them, whether it's 'actively and intentionally learned' is the question. exactly what kind of stories do you think fathers used to read/tell to their children 4 hundred years ago? why is it that only 1 hundred years ago 12 year olds were taking on the responsibilities of adulthood, but today, seesh, i know 40 year olds that have no idea what that means, "the responsibilities of adulthood." good guys, bad guys, cause and effect, consequences, laws, the concept of property via theft, the dangers of weapons, gravity, speed, the manipulation of objects in space... heck, taylor learned that when you do things people don't like they can loose interest in having you around (call it loosing friends). he learned this from GTA after noticing and questioning why rival gang members were shooting at him while he was on their turf. i laughed when his grandmother shivered at the sight of him playing HALO, a first person shooter. i used it to encourage him to learn to read (which was a problem), and to teach him to follow directions, as well as--through online play--to work as a group... as well as other things i can't quite recall. and yes, he realizes the difference between real life and video games... if you ask him what a gang is he currently says "bad guys on GTA" or something along those lines, not a group of notorious criminals who have incorporated to better control their ability to earn a buck, illegally--or something along those lines. more importantly he doesn't think being in a gang or hurting people is cool, even though he does think driving around in a simulated environment destroying things and setting people on fire is. i don't say, "i can do this, but you can't." if Taylor wants to do something he's not ready for i tell him he can learn, but that he's not ready yet. simple as that. there's nothing he cant do. and i down right expect him to take on and be successful at managing all the responsibility of a grown adult, as long as he's had the opportunity to learn how to. it's all a question of parenting and personality anyway. not a question of age. a poorly parented individual is probably more likely to act as a criminal, due to the lack of moral leadership, and a well parented individual can still decide later to become a criminal. but if we're going to remain focused on kids, look to their parents, not their learning tools.
DON'T CAPITALIZE! CO-OPERATE! AND FREE EVERYTHING!
I did the same thing when I was 5 or 6. Know where I learned to drive?
BY WATCHING MY PARENTS DO IT.
. . . because he didn't even get 1 star before crashing. The game taught him nothing. I've also played my fair share of GTA and Saints Row and not once did the game ever require me to go snatch car keys and then start up a car. So this kid was already eyeballing his parents and watching how they did things in the car. So in actuality his parents taught him how to drive and not the game. And why is this kid playing GTA when Saints Row II is 5 times better and has online co-op.
Can I bum a sig?
To be fair, this sort of thing highlights a positive aspect of manual-shift cars. There's no way a child could get in and start driving. You need practise to get it down and not stall the car. Plus, as convenient as cruise control is, if you remove it and make all cars automatic, I would imagine that people spend more time thinking about driving properly than just zoning out behind the wheel...
This brings back my usual argument - anyone claiming that GTA or Counterstrike can give you real life combat skills should be given a copy of Skate or Tony Hawk, a skateboard and one week to prove that playing the game can teach him to make a double Ollie flipkick handstand.
this is a copout reason. the kid said this because he is below the age of criminal responsibility, and saying "i got it from a game" pretty much makes him innocent. and also removes quite a lot of blame and possible charges from the parents.
same reason why criminal gangs bring in very young kids to carry their guns for them. if the kid gets caught "i found it, and i thought it would make me like [character Y in game X]".
portfolio
I clocked many long hours of playing Test Drive I and II before I was 16. I figure thats why it took me only a couple hours behind the wheel to get the hang of it. Its not surprising a 6 year old whos spent days on end playing GTA would be able to drive a car a significant distance. Hes already got a pretty good feel for how the thing behaves during acceleration, braking, turns, etc. Videogames arent real life experience? Maybe not, but theyre a good part towards it. We train fighter pilots on flight simulators for crying out loud. $15M and 10 tons of explosives, flown for the first time, by someone whos been playing a really expensive video game for a couple of months. If thats not proof that you can learn from a videogame, I dont know what is. Parents should have left the keys up on that cute little wooden keyholder their kid made for them last year... out of his reach...
No. He said he wanted to go to school and had missed the bus. Unlike many adults, he accepted responsibility for what he did.
He just said he learned to drive playing the game, which explains why he hit some many things, ran off the road, and crashed into a tree.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
You obviously live in a city.
If you grew up in the country, guns are a way of life, and quite safe.
My parents had guns for years when I was growing up. There were no laws regarding keeping them locked up at the time, so they were sitting on a rack on the wall, unlocked, within easy reach by either of us kids, in the living room.
The bullets were 6 feet away in the top drawer of the filing cabinet beside my mom's desk.
Every farmhouse around us that I ever remember going in had a similar gun rack. I was back to do some work for one of my parent's neighbours recently, and right there in the living room, is the gun rack, still. Now it's locked up, but it's still right there, on the wall beside their dinner table.
We were taught from a very early age that they were not toys, period, and we were not to touch them when our parents were not there. We did occasionally, of course, but never the guns and the bullets at the same time. (They were stored unloaded.)
Our parents did take us out on occasion for shooting practice, as an educational tool. This is how you handle it safely, this is how you aim, etc. Never once did we have an accident, even shooting a rifle at 10 years old or less.
The reason it's different in the country is that, in the city, guns are used as protection against other people, other drug dealers, etc.
In the country, guns are used as protection against wildlife, and sometimes your livelihood, or your very life is threatened by that wildlife.
When your livestock, that you have hundreds of thousands invested in is being attacked by a pack of wolves, are you going to go out with a hammer to try to get them away?
Hell no.
You'll go out with a rifle and start blasting everything that doesn't look like sheep.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
...anyone who's played GTA knows you can't drive through a utility pole. That's why you're supposed to drive on the sidewalk.
If I was going to kill them from ten feet, ten yards, or ten miles...
I would use a car.
The kid probably hit the utility pole while he was trying to run over "a pimp or a ho" on the sidewalk...
I saw this story on the local news last evening (Nova Scotia, Canada if it's all relevant) and the story spin was more about a 6 year old who didn't want to miss school and managed to drive the car 10 miles. Which was pretty darned interesting. In the last sentence of the story they mentioned that he learned to drive from a video game. They didn't even say which game. Apparently our local news service didn't feel the need to scapegoat the game. All that being said I do agree that no children should be playing GTA period. I like the game personally but it is NOT appropriate for kids. So how he got the game and played it often enough to derive any sort of skill-set from it I think should have the focus of any articles that seek to place the blame on the game itself. And I might add that I took off with the car twice in 1980 when I was 3 years old and for the record I never even encountered a video game of any sort nor would I for at least 3 more years.
To him, it's the "Oyster Hunting Game"
It's all in the parenting, I suppose. /plays with audio off
I've long wanted to see a European version of Left4Dead, where all the zombies are replaced by sex-crazed orgy-goers and you have to satiate them with your various handheld "toys". There would be surprisingly little reprogramming necessary for such a mod...
When I was a pre-teen or so my pop let me shoot some guns for the first time. Today, I own the first gun I ever shot (a .22 caliber Winchester Semi-Auto) as well as a couple of shotguns and a nice Peruvian Mauser. But long before I had ever fired a gun I knew something about firearm safety. I'm not sure where I picked it up, I think maybe my rich white kids school (At which I was only financially out of place, aside from my surname) had some kind of firearm safety day.
The only point of all this is that it is entirely possible to have firearm safety, through education. I simply know better than to point guns at people I don't intend to shoot. Consequently, I have never pointed a gun at anyone (except the kind that expels paint balls.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I knew that GTA for Leapfrog was a bad idea! Totally irresponsible.
six-year-old who recently stole his parents' car and drove it into a utility pole has passed the buck onto a familiar scapegoat: the video game, Grand Theft Auto. Rockstar Games' controversial Grand Theft Auto video game
Of course it's his parent's problem. Not only did they leave the keys where the child could find them, but they didn't prepare him properly. Everyone knows that they should have bought him Gran Turismo or any other driving simulation, instead of the game GTA, if they really wanted him to drive to school!
i try not to say, "i can do this, but you can't." if Taylor wants to do something he's not ready for i tell him he can learn, but that he's not ready yet. simple as that. there's nothing he cant do. and i down right expect him to take on and be successful at managing all the responsibility of a grown adult, as long as he's had the opportunity to learn how to.
Thank you so much. What is it with people who can't understand this? It's like half of /. got replaced with Helen Lovejoy.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
From what I've heard of the story, that 6 year old made it 9 miles before wrecking the car. I have to grant kudos - my first learning drive at 15 I whacked a mirror within less than 9 miles.
To be honest, you can't ask much more of a video game for giving your kid a fighting chance.
You can get 15 minutes of fame, but you can go down in history for infamy.
I'm not surprised he hit a lightpole, it's all I can ever manage to do.
At least he didn't hit one of those indestructible trees.
Did he go flying through the windshield upon impact with realistic ragdoll physics?
Oh, wait, I got one more - he only hit the lightpole 'cause his cousin called him up and wouldn't stop babbling about Spongebob, the annoying bastard.
PERL:
All of the power of Voodoo with most of the understandibility!
Of course guns are dangerous, but this is like saying that the only safe kitchen knife is a kitchen knife that doesn't exist. Anything that is or was derived from a weapon is dangerous when used without proper respect for it's destructive power. This includes guns, kitchen knives (plenty of nasty injuries in the kitchen when people are careless), and most tools.
I like to cook, and I have a very nice set of very sharp knives in my kitchen. If you are careless with them, you have a very good chance of getting seriously injured or injuring someone else. But if you use them properly, you will be quite safe.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
Kids are sneaky. yes, you teach them right and wrong. Yes, you can refuse to buy them a video game. But do you think when they come home from a friend's house they are going to tell you that they played that video game at their friend's house? So do I need to get an inventory of all of my kid's friends' video games and tell them which house to go to and which not to go to? Or do I just tell them I am not buying them this game and for these reasons, and then hope they make the right decisions when they are at their friends' house. I think this is a case of "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink". You can teach your child right from wrong, and you can share your experience with them, but ultimately it is up to the child whether to take advantage of your years of experience or whether to make their own mistakes and learn from them. If you have taught your child right from wrong and you have shared your experience with them, then you have done your part, and should not be blamed for the consequences of you kid ignoring your teachings.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I wonder who trained him in this parroted buck shifting?
And how strong is the evidence that he was at the wheel and not his drunk dad/mom?
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
My son played driving games on PC's for years growing up. He was skilled at weaving through lanes, where when I tried it, I was totally off the track in a few moments. A few years later he got his driving permit. We were heading across a long narrow bridge when suddenly a large RV appeared in the opposite lane, and we were going to meet on the narrowest part of the bridge. Before I could even think, my son threaded that tight spot perfectly, with inches on each side, and calm as a cucumber. Later, after I calmed down, I asked if the video games helped. He said, 'Yup, it was just like in the video games". So to me, they are driving simulators that maybe saved us from a wicked accident.
I learned to drive when I was 6 by playing 'Night Driver' on the Atari 2600. Having the car move instead of the trees took some getting used to.
but whether it should be okay for people to carry around objects that are only designed to murder others.
Did you read a single word from my post? The only reason you think guns are only designed to murder others is because you live in a city, and that's all you've ever seen them used for.
For that matter, I'd seriously like to know how you'd get a 3 foot long .303 caliber rifle into somewhere to kill others without getting shot yourself. I'm not talking about handguns.
I'm talking about stuff like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lee-Enfield_Rifle.jpg
This is not an inner city drug lord weapon. This is...well, this particular one is a World War 1/2 vintage military weapon. But any rifle of this length is not a concealed carry type weapon. Concealed carry is what you're worried about, because those types of weapons are what cause problems in cities.
These types of long gun weapons are meant, currently, for rural residents to protect their livelihood from wildlife predators. They're also used by northern Canada (and other parts of the world) residents to hunt for food.
Maybe you need to get your mind out of the box you've put it in before you start making claims as to how others should live their lives.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Didn't GTA IV teach him the joys of getting drunk BEFORE trying to drive? Tch. Way to half do things!
What makes a person with a gun any less enticing to shoot? It just makes you the first target.
Just because you can, does not mean you should.
This is why we have the ESRB, don't get me wrong I was playing T games when I was 7 and M games when I was 10 it was still useful. The parents should not let a 6 year old play GTA.