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."

Comments

Prosecute the parents

[gbulmash]

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.

Re:Prosecute the parents

[lxt]

And let's just remember here, this is a 6 year old kid. It's not like he's walking up to a counter and buying the game himself. His parents (or somebody) went out and actively bought a game where you deliver drugs and are free to have sex with prostitutes for him.

Re:Prosecute the parents

[Anonymous Coward]

You should probably be more concerned with the parts where you kill people.

Re:Prosecute the parents

[dmomo]

Let's mod the parent "Redundant". Not because it isn't valid. It's basically the only reasonable response to stories like this and I would hope the majority of posts that follow are in the same vein. But hot dang, we've beaten this to death and now it's like we're just indulging it. Mod this story redundant.

The news story shouldn't be:

6 Year Old Blames GTA for Car Crash.

The story is:
6 Year Old Crashes Car

or

6 Year Old Allowed to Play GTA

Re:Prosecute the parents

[jerep]

This is what happens when the kids have more authority than their parents, they whine, cry, shout and whatnot and the parent is just standing there thinking "what am I going to do with them". These parents usually do everything their child ask of them thinking it will make them happy and maybe correct this behavior, when in fact it just encourages it.

I agree with the parent (post, not the kid's), a 6-yo shouldn't play an adult game that promotes stealing cars, there's a good reason it was made an adult game and this kid just proves it.

Re:Prosecute the parents

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that depends where the poster is from. If it's the Netherlands, then gun violence and murder are considered a bigger social problem than drugs and prostitution. If it's America, then drugs and prostitution are considered bigger social problems than gun violence and murder.

Re:Prosecute the parents

[DeathElk]

Hmmm, interesting priorities. I, for one, would rather get stoned and laid than shot and killed...

Re:Prosecute the parents

[mpascal]

Hey now! If we are going to blame GTA for teaching how to steal mom's car; can we also give them credit for motivating the kid to drive himself to school? What we have here is an eager young learner. What other kid has stolen a car to go to school?

Re:Prosecute the parents

[HiVizDiver]

You are clearly not from the US, where it's okay for us to buy guns at Wal-Mart, but OMG BOOBIES HIDE TEH CHILDERN!!!! ;-)

Note that even as a lefty-moderate, I actually don't see anything wrong with guns. I do love me some shootin', and properly handled and locked up, they're no more dangerous than a hammer or any other object that could be used to kill someone.

Re:Prosecute the parents

[Starayo]

Yeah, that'd be grand.

"I played GTA when I was 6, so now I'm an orphan." :P

Re:Prosecute the parents

[Raffaello]

Hard to kill someone at ten yards with a hammer

Don't read too often about the 7 year old who accidentally killed his playmate when he found his dad's toolbox unlocked.

school children are almost never killed in the crossfire in drive by nailings

  so guns are in fact more dangerous than hammers.

Re:Prosecute the parents

[opposabledumbs]

I think you're beating a non-existent issue in this case,from reading the article on this. I'm not very sure how much GTA had to do with anything here: within minutes of the kid getting picked up by the cops, his dad was issued with a charge of criminal negligence due to a previous court order which ordered him not to leave the kid alone, and the kid stole the car to get to school and get some food.

That seems to say that there are previous, serious home issues here, not something that can be explained away by a stupid knee-jerk, blame-the-game reaction.

Not sure which version of GTA he may have had access to, but mine didn't show me how to turn the key while pushing the gas pedal down with the car in park.

Besides, the kid stole the car to get to school so that he could get some food, which is incredibly sad. It's guessed that, as he is not tall for his age, he was standing on the pedals, and at some points he was exceeding 70 MPH.

The only inference I can see to GTA is his drivintg style: speeding, overtaking, too, and an attempt at a pass on a double solid while traffic was oncoming led to him losing control and smacking the pole.

But my argument still is: someBODY actually taught him to drive- not some game.

Re:Prosecute the parents

[wizzat]

When I was a younger man, I knew a kid (~8 yr/o) that was put in the Big House because he attacked his playmate with a hammer. He said he got mad and 'woke up' standing over the other boy with the bloody hammer in his hand. Last I talked to him, the other kid was still not conscious. Additionally, you have to look at accidental injuries with hammers vs accidental injuries with guns. While the single instance seriousness of a gun accident is much higher, I'd say (from experience) that the collective injuries from the common hammer is much higher. In fact, I'm willing to bet that there's more hammer and tool related hospitalizations than gun hospitalizations...

Re:Prosecute the parents

[Nathrael]

Of course they are dangerous - but pretty much everything can be said to be dangerous, and if it isn't guns, then it is cars, and if isn't cars or guns, then it is pollution, or whatever. People will always find something to go mad about - besides, you know...guns don't kill people, people kill people. And, coming from a nation with very tight gun control laws - well, here, the people possessing guns are mainly either employed by the police (which is underfunded and -trained and thus doesnt't exactly do a good job as protecting the citizens) and wannabe criminals carry knifes and iron knuckles, and well - to me, it doesn't make much of a difference if I get stabbed or beaten to death, but I'd wish I'd at least have a chance to defend myself and finally can cross the street in certain parts of this land without having to fear some rabid criminals.

Re:Prosecute the parents

[warsql]

Reminds me of an episode of All in the Family.
Gloria: Daddy, do you realize there were x number of murders committed with guns last year?
Archie: Would it make you feel any better, little girl, if they were pushed out of windows?

Re:Prosecute the parents

[pha3r0]

Father of a two year old, uncle of a 3 and a 1 year old: Some above comments speak of locking everything down when kids are involved. Well that's just not always possible, however my daughter (or nieces under my care) has (have) _never_ gotten into anything dangerous. Be it cleaning supplies, any of my guns or ammo, toolboxes, knife drawer or even so much as a fire ring while camping.

God forbid it may happen one day, but god willing I or my wife will be there, close by and prepared to handle the situation.

Now jokes aside if this young boy actually spent enough time playing GTA to figure he could drive, and his parents had not yet taught him the difference between a game and reality. AND they allowed this boy to exit the house, keys in hand, and take control of a motor vehicle then there is absolutely no one at fault then his own parents.

You simply do not know what a child will do at any given time. You as the adult, guardian, mentor and/or parent MUST keep one eye or ear firmly dedicated to them. You must take responsibility when they knock things down at the store, show them how to apologize when you walk in front of an old man at McDonalds, and for they're sake monitor what they are doing in the moments before these things happen. It might not be an old guy in a wheelchair sometime, it could be a bus.

Re:Prosecute the parents

[kiwijapan]

Archie: Would it make you feel any better, little girl, if they were pushed out of windows?

Only if they were pushed into Linux...

Re:Prosecute the parents

[beelsebob]

There's one difference between said gun and said hammer â" the hammer has another purpose. Which is why most countries (but not the US) limit gun use to only people who have another purpose for the gun.

Re:Prosecute the parents

[ThePengwin]

Probably because the accidently shot may be dead?

Re:Prosecute the parents

[azenpunk]

the other difference between a gun and a hammer is that when both are held by an attacker and an intended victim, only the gun offers either a level field or possibly gives the victim an advantage, where the hammer gives the advantage to whoever is strongest and most violent.

Re:Prosecute the parents

[Rick Bentley]

so guns are in fact more dangerous than hammers.

Hammers might be a bad example, but guns are a lot less dangerous than cars. In fact, we are all much more likely to be killed by a car than a gun.

Firearms are involved in 0.6% of accidental deaths nationally. Most accidental deaths involve, or are due to:
motor vehicles (39%),
poisoning (18%),
falls (16%),
suffocation (5%),
drowning (2.9%),
fires (2.8%),
medical mistakes (2.2%),
environmental factors (1.2%),
and bicycles and tricycles (0.7%).

Among children:
motor vehicles (45%),
suffocation (18%),
drowning (14%),
fires (9%),
bicycles and tricycles (2.4%),
falls (2%),
poisoning (1.6%),
environmental factors (1.5%),
and medical mistakes (0.8%).

Clearly guns don't kill people -- cars kill people. Unlike a car, however, only a gun can protect you from an assailant.

As an aside, I have an assault rifle (in California, bought it just because it was being banned) a .45 and a 9mm. I also have an SUV. Believe me, I could kill a lot more people with the SUV than I could with all three guns and a wheelbarrow full of ammo. Just hit a crowded parade area, with jam-packed sidewalks, one fine day and start mowing people down. You can keep that up a lot longer in an SUV than you can shooting on the street corner (before a cop shoots you or the crowd jumps you). I can go 400 miles on a tank of gas, I could mow down most of a parade route before the cops boxed me in and shot me.

You want to keep your kids safe? Hide the keys. You want to keep society safe? Take away the cars.

Re:Prosecute the parents

[wellingj]

Did I miss something or did you just deem self defense as an immoral act?

Re:Prosecute the parents

[drinkypoo]

The US doesn't do that because we understand that you can't have the other nine rights in the bill of rights if you don't have any way to protect them. Universal rights are a nice idea but in the end they are pure bullshit, and the only rights those you have are those you can keep and hold. Gandhi said that of all the acts of the British, disarming an entire nation would go down among their blackest. Carrying this idea along, do you really trust your government to be in charge of all the guns? I sure as hell don't. And the day I do, you might as well shoot me because I have turned off my fucking brain.

Re:Prosecute the parents

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

If you were going to be attacked by someone at a distance of 10 yards and they had a gun with 50 rounds, it would suck. But if you also had a gun, they'd be a lot less likely to try to attack you.

Re:Prosecute the parents

[thebheffect]

You're doing the same thing the article is suggesting: passing the problem off onto the wrong object. Even if you take away the guns, you still have a maniac running around looking to kill you.

Re:Prosecute the parents

[abbyful]

I would prefer that I had 1 gun + 50 rounds to defend myself against said attacker.

Re:Prosecute the parents

[Dahamma]

In a rural type area, sure you might have more people that injure themselves with tools than guns

Tell that to Dick Cheney...

Next up...

[Nemyst]

Now you can blame plane crashes on Flight Simulator!

Re:Next up...

[gbarules2999]

I got fat off Pac-Man.

Re:Next up...

[mr_mischief]

I got addicted to speed from Pac-Man. He pops one pill, and suddenly he's moving faster and can beat the crap out of the bullies chasing him. Fruit gives you points, but pills are good for you.

Even better reason

[SuperKendall]

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.

Re:Even better reason

[jonnythan]

thank goodness ho found a pole before a hooker.

Freudian slip?

Re:Even better reason

[TubeSteak]

The parents had car keys where the six year old could get them?

Your parents didn't?

As far as I can recall, my parents have put their keys and wallet/purse in the same easy-to-reach place for over 20 years.

Really, it isn't like kids didn't go joyriding in or steal cars 'back in the day',
the media just didn't sensationalize it by shouting "ZOMG VIDEO GAMEZ"

Re:Even better reason

[MichaelSmith]

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.

My six year old son can drive games like tux cart and mario cart. He watches my wife and I drive. he knows where the car keys are too, but I am not the slightest bit concerned that he will start doing adult things like driving the car.

A six year old is perfectly capable of knowing the difference between right and wrong without being wrapped in cotton wool.

Re:Even better reason

[Tamran]

Hell, I give me niece my car keys to play with. Course, she's only 1...

Do you know where your car is right now?

Re:Even better reason

[xstonedogx]

I disagree. My five-year-old knows to drive the car you need to be 16, have a license, and have daddy's permission. She also knows that just because she can handle Mario Kart does not mean she knows how to drive. She knows that video games are fantasy and that when cars crash in real life people are hurt or even killed. We also don't neglect her or tell her we need to nap when it is time for her to go somewhere, so I guess that helps, too.

I am curious where you kept your keys while your child(ren) were young. Short of a locked safe, I honestly can't think of a place in my house my daughter couldn't get my keys if she were so determined.

We do keep things out of easy reach (e.g., knives). But those are things that can hurt her just by handling them. She knows enough to not try to reach them, but we don't want her encountering them by accident. She could reach them if she were determined, but she won't. She'd also never really have the opportunity since one of us is always around.

Car keys aren't really that dangerous in and of themselves. I'm more worried about her losing them than doing any damage with them. Just to use them in the car would take significant determination on the part of a young child, so I don't really think making them more difficult to get to is really going to prevent this type of thing if the kid is determined to have a go.

Re:Even better reason

[The Wooden Badger]

Not that I disagree with you. I agree in almost all counts, but there are cases where the obvious social "rights" and "wrongs" are not so obvious. To my oldest they are obvious. To my child with Asperger's Syndrome they are not so obvious. He in fact decided to take the car for a drive once (probably at about this same age). He was able to unlock the car, put the key in the ignition and put it into neutral. He didn't have starting the car figured out, so it just rolled until the topography stopped it.

My son didn't end up hurting anyone or doing any property damage, but to him it wasn't obvious that what he was doing was wrong. I could see a small possibility of the kid in the story in a sense being conditioned to joyride in his parents' car from playing GTA, but that assumes that the kid has some neurological condition apart from stupid parents. He might have still done this, but the likelihood could increase if he is playing games that portray it as normal.

Ultimately the kid has stupid parents. They don't have the sense to raise a productive member of society. I think the story further illustrates their stupidity in their passing the buck to the game. He learned that behavior from them and/or they are enablers for his perpetuating that "skill" learned elsewhere. If it was just a story of some kid that fundamentally had a problem differentiating "right" and "wrong" jacking his parents' car and hitting a pole we have no story (unless some advocacy group wants to raise awareness for his condition). Instead we have the hackneyed story of "the game made me do something stupid, and the parents who enabled me."

Re:Even better reason

[Sensible Clod]

I did the same thing with the same results when I was 3 or 4, except no keys were needed (stick shift FTW). I had no concept that it was wrong at the time, but of course I found out later that it was indeed wrong. This has very little or nothing to do with neurological conditions (for most people) and very much to do with the maturity of the child involved.

But even so, children must be taught right from wrong by their parents or else they will learn it from the media (like GTA) and other strangers (including other children) who teach their own standards.

Re:Even better reason

[HungryHobo]

Heh.

Many times my grandparents told me the story of how at the age of 3 or 4 my dad crashed the tractor. :D

climbed up, could just about stand on the pedals while holding the wheel. The tractor ended up in a ditch.

Now I doubt somehow that my dad ever played GTA at that age and was probably not trying to imitate any game.
I'd say he was trying to imitate my grandfather who would have been driving the tractor a great deal.

Kids try to be like their parents a whole lot more than they try to be like Tommy Vercetti.

Re:Even better reason

[drinkypoo]

But even so, children must be taught right from wrong by their parents or else they will learn it from the media (like GTA) and other strangers (including other children) who teach their own standards.

I would put another spin on this; these parents used GTA4 to teach their child to drive their car.

What precisely did they THINK was going to result from taking a child too young (studies show) to tell the difference between programming and commercials, and putting them down with a video game?

If video games were not valid training aids, the world's militaries wouldn't use them as such.

I'm not saying that video games CAUSE this kind of behavior. Letting TV and video games RAISE your children causes this kind of behavior.

TFA lacks pertinent details...

[Anonymous Coward]

No mention of how many hookers he had blow him and then subsequently ran over.

I wish I could tag

[skogs]

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!

the real story

[UncleWilly]

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.

The Real TFA

[SanityInAnarchy]

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.

Unfortunately...

[goatpunch]

... GTA also taught him that you can drive through lampposts, notice that he avoided the trees.

this is such bad parenting.

[DragonTHC]

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.

Re:this is such bad parenting.

[Quartz25]

I agree with you that keeping it from kids is a good idea, but it should be in the hands of the parents to decide. I think the real problem is that GTA is being used as a red herring to distract from more deeply rooted problems that each case has.

Re:this is such bad parenting.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, see, I have an issue with this. As a gamer who is also a father, it is indeed possible that my son may be with me at some point where I am buying an "M" rated game. My son is quite young right now, so no employee could realistically believe that he's going to be playing the game, but 8 years from now or so, I foresee myself still playing and buying games. What then? I have to leave him at home or tell him to bugger off to look at the TVs while I pay for the game?

And my age group gets older, this situation is going to become more and more common.

Re:this is such bad parenting.

[secretcurse]

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.

No, every parent has an obligation to monitor everything their child consumes, from food to clothing to entertainment.

games don't create accidents.

[log1385]

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.

Re:Pole Position

[karnal]

Epic fail! Pole Position didn't have reverse!!!

I blame the parents

[ParanoiaBOTS]

For getting a car that is driven with an analog stick and/or a D-pad

That's nothing!

[monkeySauce]

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.

The real culprit: Automatic transmission

[phaze3000]

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?!

Outrage!!!

[CuteSteveJobs]

> 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.

GTA?

[Alarindris]

I did the same thing when I was 5 or 6. Know where I learned to drive?

BY WATCHING MY PARENTS DO IT.

Re:Wrong!

[cbiltcliffe]

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.