Videogame Driving Skills Don't Apply In Real Life

the digital nomad writes "When driving cars in videogames, you're often forced to see everything from a third-person perspective. Now, what would happen if you tried to drive while limited to that odd view in real life? These folks decided to find out."

Comments

Night Driver FTW

[plover]

I still credit the training I received for playing long hours of Night Driver with saving my life in 1981. I was cresting a hill late at night on a two-lane country road when I was suddenly faced with an oncoming car in my lane. Using the exact same right-left swerve that I practiced so many times in the video game, I avoided a head-on collision by hitting the shoulder just in time, and got off the shoulder before sliding down the ditch.

The real question should be "Would I have still missed him had I not played so much Night Driver?" There's no way to answer that, of course, but for now I'll stick with the "my anecdotal evidence runs counter to your theory" attitude.

Re:Night Driver FTW

[Adrian Lopez]

I used to play a lot of Rad Racer as a kid. While taking my first driving lesson the driving instructor chided me for turning the wheel left and back to center then right and back to center in order to keep the car going the way I wanted it to. She immediately grabbed the wheel and strongly suggested the car would go the way I pointed it, at which point I realized a wheel doesn't behave the way an NES d-pad does.

True story.

Re:Night Driver FTW

[Monkeedude1212]

When I was younger one of my favourite games to play was Road Rash. and it saved MY Life back in 2005. I was riding along one evening when I was suddenly found riding along another motorcyclist. My natural instinct was to whip out my 5 foot chain, beat him with it senselessly until he wiped out into a traffic sign, and continue along at breakneck speeds, only to stop for some hookers and booze.

The real question should be "Is there any chance Jack Thompson is going to read this post?". There's no way to answer that, but for now I'll stick with the "By God I sure hope not" attitude.

What?!

[Chameleon Man]

You mean banana peels DON'T make cars spin out?!

i beg to differ

[corbettw]

On the ride into work this morning, I drove over several pedestrians, flipped my car twice after hitting guardrails at the wrong angle, and took 5 minutes to get unstuck when I drove through the plate-glass window of a coffee shop. I'd say I've learned everything I need to know about driving from video games.

Misformulated argument, misformulated article

[unity100]

In real simulation games you are forced to view the game through driver's view, which is LOWER than the field of view you would have in a real car, because 2d screen cannot accommodate a human's fov from a first person perspective.

so, argument is formulated wrong. its not 'videogame driving skills dont apply in real life', but, 'videogame driving skills in games that allow 3rd person view do not apply in real life'.

otherwise, all the simulators the military is using to train tank drivers, pilots, captains etc would mean bullshit.

Re:WTF?

[ehrichweiss]

What's somewhat worse about this "experiment" is that they didn't have a workable 3rd-person view. They wanted the drivers to navigate between the cones but didn't have enough of an angle to differentiate between them easily. I mean the camera view was mostly the truck, not the road; if it'd been about 10-20 ft higher, their results would have varied massively.