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Video Games Linked To Reckless Driving
An anonymous reader writes "'A new study suggests video games that involve reckless driving may play out in real life. Researchers say their data should not be taken lightly since car accidents are the number one cause of death for teenagers.' Just a case of video games being used as a convenient scapegoat, or could there be some truth to this?"
Bingo. Driving games could cause reckless driving in real life. Or people who drive recklessly enjoy driving games. Reckless go-kart racing could also be associated with both games and automobile driving, but that wasn't the focus of the study.
I'm glad TFA admitted that one isn't necessarily the cause of the other, thereby bypassing the whole causation != correlation argument. Kudos for that.
That's just nonsense.. Without all those extended training sessions playing Forza, I'd never be able to drive safely on the highway at 90+ mph.
Frankly, there are too many of these damn kids around anyway.
The only time my poor driving skills from video games crosses over into my real driving is when I'm playing a driving game while driving my car.
Video games! HAH! I learned to drive recklessly from Han Solo on the big screen. I didn't need no stinkin' video game! Kiss my asteroids!
Perhaps we need a new genre of driving games. Anyone remember Driver, where the cops would leave you alone so long as you stopped at traffic lights and whatnot ? We need that, only if you do get in a high speed chase you almost always lose, and your xbox/playstation/etc is deactivated for the length of your would-be prison sentence. Maybe that'll get through to the kids ;p
About 10 years ago I got really into the game "Midtown Madness" which features races where you race free-form through downtown Chicago picking your own route to hit a number of checkpoints. The game requires you to read traffic patterns, lights, etc far in advance. After playing the game, I found that I was doing the same thing in real traffic. My brain had been trained to observe and anticipate as if I were driving through city traffic at 80MPH rather than 35. I became much more aware of what was happening on cross streets, and in lanes other than mine. It faded back to normal, though, as I moved on to other games.
I do wonder, however, if being able to crash a car repeatedly with no real consequences has an impact on your subconcious risk-assesment of various manuvers.
I can totally see this. If I drive after about an hour or two playing GTA and I see a cop car, my first instinct is to ram into the cop car, wait for the cop to get out, jump into his car, speed off, find a hooker and sleep with her (killing her promptly after), and repeat.
Would you hug a bear?
Perhaps the simplest solution is true? People who enjoy driving fast are naturally attracted to games featuring fast driving?
Since the dawn of humans, kids were always reckless.
When I was a young driver the only way I could drive was flat out, no compromises, just pure speed. Now 20 years later I'm calm and polite. I still enjoy a random race on the track, but on the road I have full respect for other drivers.
And you can see the exact same patter in online racing. Most of the youngster drive like they play a single player game.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
because before the computer, there were never any reckless horse n buggy drivers
Try driving an SUV while listening to the Halo soundtrack. THAT'S dangerous.
Back in the days of need of speed 3, I'd feel my sense of distance was a little off if I stopped playing and needed to drive somewhere IRL. Of course, this has no relation whatsoever with the "fast and furious" style of the game or the "omg i'm a gangsta" of GTA. Just the fake 3d screwing up my brain auto-adjustments.
Why they don't go and study the effects of videogames in driving on the following subjects:
- improved reflexes
- risk control (you know what happens in the vg if you do this, so I'm not trying in real life)
- steering control (see above)
Instead they just want to go the "videogames are bad" route
how long until
People have been claiming this since Spy Hunter came out. It was bunk then and it is bunk now. It's not video games that make you drive fast, it's the Peter Gunn theme.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Aptly enough the fortune right now reads "You can get *anywhere* in ten minutes if you drive fast enough." :D
I was too afraid to learn to drive (it looks dangerous!) until I played Crazy Taxi. That got my confidence up enough that I was willing to take driver's training. I still hate driving, but at least I have the confidence that other people will try to get out of my way when I drive on the sidewalk.
Oddly, teenagers died in car accidents before video games existed. Playing Joust on an Atari 2600 didn't suddenly give me an urge to pick up a lance and ride a giant bird. There still is no credible evidence that associates aggressive real life behavior to video games.
"I'm not a quack, I'm a mad scientist! There's a difference." - Dr. Cockroach
Teens found a way of dieing by driving accidents way before video games ever came along. If there's a way to identify higher risk youths then that's all and good I suppose. This just brings me back to my teenage years where there were a few people in my schools who ended up dieing in accidents (usually associated with drinking and driving, but that's another discussion).
Bye!
As long as teens have been driving cars, car accidents have been the leading cause of death among teenagers.
Teenagers are really really stupid.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Everybody knows that anything I use and/or are interest in, cause no problems at all.
Je ne parle pas francais.
First off, I'll admit, I recently had my licence reinstated after a six-month suspension.
Speeding is fun. Video games are fun. Teenagers like to have fun. This also extends to other things like sex, drugs, and (I guess) rock and roll.
Driving at 170Km/h (105MPH) for over an hour on the 401 was fun.
If we want kids to be safe drivers, we'd have to teach them that fun is bad.
Now that I have my licence back, fun is over. Time for video games I guess.
So, this is my fault for making sure I'm properly prepared for my road trip by packing plenty of turtle shells, banana peels, and mushrooms? Unbelieveable...
I've gotten big into sim racing e.g. GTR 2 and I noticed that my driving habits changed in a negative way. I found myself following "the line" on roads, cutting corners, accelerating faster, and breaking harder. This wasn't intentional at all since I've always been a cautious driver to the point of paranoia. It wasn't until blew past a slower truck (in the mindset of a slower GT2 class car in my way) half on a median and half in his lane that I realized how bad I had gotten. I'm now very conscious about what I'm doing, but I still catch myself following the best line on turns (which isn't safe and totally pointless at traffic speeds).
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
then try pulling up to a toll bridge. You'll feel the urge to tear right through it!
I find that I'm more reckless on my horse after playing Red Dead Redemption.
You can't say that just because kids play video games and also drive poorly there's any relation. Kids always have driven badly - it's just that the worst drivers are also attracted to playing games. Violent driving games are not a cause, they are an indication of the interests of the average testosterone filled youth.
The best thing you can do for a teenage driver is to give them cars with great handling but not too much engine. Something like a mini cooper (not the S), or otehr car that handles well but will not let the kid get into speed related trouble too quickly and give them a chance at getting out of a situation without crashing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What would the medical industry do without all these reckless gamers?
This sounds really similar to the situation race car drivers get into. They have problems slowing down.
I guess it's a testament to the increasing realism and immersion factors in today's games.
That said, no one ever accused race car drivers of being the sharpest knives in the drawer. Just because you want to/feel like going fast doesn't mean you should. Brains people....use em.
While the study assumes that the gamers learn bad habits like tailgating and driving over curbs from GTA, overconfidence may be another factor (assuming causation = correlation here, which I'm not completely convinced). How many teens have spent hours driving around in virtual worlds and think it will be a piece of cake when they get behind the wheel of a car made out of atoms instead of bits/bytes.
My daughter is an expert driver in Ralley GT, but she came within 3 feet of taking out our fence the other day by mistaking the gas pedal for the brake. The pucker factor was pretty high.
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
Sounds familiar. I've had this propensity to roll things up into a giant ball, since about 2006 or so. Katamari!!!!
During the late 70's to mid-80's it was a common practice during U.S.N. flight simulator sessions for the flight instructor to pause a simulation in mid-flight, then give feedback and instruction to the student. Then they began having pilots "freeze" under similar conditions during actual flight-time. Policy was ammended to ban the interruption of any simulation training scenario and debriefs were performed at the end of the session. The incidents of "freezing pilot" began to decline. You most likely WILL fight the way you train.
These games have made me a better driver on every other day, more cognizant of the weight distribution on my tires, available friction to turn/accelerate/brake and the like, so it's been a positive thing on the whole, but for that minute or so, I wouldn't've wanted to be out there with me.
Dare to Hope. Prepare to be Disappointed.
I had been playing a Need For Speed open-world type game for hours, which IIRC had full stop signs and lights and stuff that you'd generally ignore. Then I had to make a real life trip to the grocery store. I ran a stop sign without even thinking about it and even after seeing it clearly, something I never ever do. Not making any judgments here, just throwing out a personal experience.
PLAYING Video games - increases teenage preganancies ... oh sorry it dosnt.
By my definition, being a reckless driver causes a high incidence of also being a police officer.
It could just be that the kind of reckless idiot who drives dangerously also likes to drive dangerously in his video games. The link isn't between the video game and the reckless driving, it's between the basic recklessness and the behavior in both games and driving.
If it is true, then it is probably caused by subconscious programming. Just like kata "programs" the body and mind to respond without thought, aggressive driving games probably program aggressive driving behavior. It probably doesn't effect everyone and those it effects are probably effected to varying degrees.
Some of it will come from one confusing one's ability in video games with one's abilities in real life.
Some will come from believing that video game physics are the same as real world physics.
Some will come from, as other's have said, the "fast is fun" mentality.
Really, this is not going to be a case of A causing B, just A exacerbating the pre-existing tendency towards B.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
About 8 or more years ago I spent a saturday morning playing GT on the PS/2. I was working on unlocking the various license classes, and was really into it for 2 or 3 hours. The wife asked me to run to the store to pick up something. About a mile from my house I realized I was driving like a complete maniac...
I don't know about you guys, but with myself I noticed that when my car radio is playing an "agressive" (for example, heavy metal) or fast beat kind of music my driving gets a lot more reckless than after I've just had a session of playing GTA.
In fact, interestingly enough, while playing GTA I find myself tunning the in-game car radio for that kind of tunes much more than slower/placid ones.
I once tried to power-slide around a curve after playing it. It didn't work.
Yeah because none of us that were teenagers before games consoles were invented ever drove fast. NOT.
Study claims some people react poorly to some things! World stunned! Slashdot enraged! Members engorged! Politicians scandalized! Pointless and boring film at 11 between the police blotter and the taped report from the orchid festival!
Why am I elbow deep in 1000-pin parts and ruing my eyesight scanning 600 page user manuals for the one poorly documented "gotcha" that could ruin my whole multimillion dollar R&D? Why do I live with this stress? Where do I send my resume so I can spend my work days doing *Important* *Studies* like this?
When I was 15, Race Drivin' (the sequel to Hard Drivin') was out; it was a sit-down racing simulator with amazingly realistic wheel feedback/physics. Unlike basically every other game I've played, the car you were driving behaved much like a real car. (ie, you could fish tail, and if you steered with the slide you could recover)
The first time I ever accidentally fishtailed my car in real life, I instinctively steered with the slide and recovered. I've heard that people without training tend to turn against the slide and exacerbate the problem. I have always thought that without my really extensive Race Drivin' playing, I wouldn't have reacted that way. (And when I say extensive, I mean it - I got to the point where I could gain time on laps and once played for an entire hour and stood up with the "remaining time" at the cap.)
People talk about having positive role models for children. This is because we, as humans, look towards those we admire and emulate them. Race car drivers, whether real, in a video game, on a movie screen are "cool" in a lot of people's eyes. What they do is cool. Their lives are cool. We envy the thrills for which they get paid.
I remember several years ago I had some sneak preview tickets for The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Let me just say that I waited 30 minutes after the end of that movie before everyone who had just seen it had finished peeling out of the parking lot and speeding away recklessly. And these were normal people, from a wide range of age groups. Maybe the young ARE more impressionable, but that doesn't allow one to place the blame solely on the medium. Any example of alternate behavior lends itself to emulation. Whether that takes the form of a "copycat" killer or holding the door open for someone isn't necessarily the result of exposure, but merely the impulsiveness and decision-making skills of the one exposed. Whether you agree or disagree on the merits, this is why we have ratings systems for video games. And for film. To limit the exposure from those whose decision-making skills haven't completely matured, albeit deciding who is limited in an arbitrary manner.
This isn't meant to advance a viewpoint one way or the other - it's merely an observation.
I think it's true, but it's not just driving games. I for one, am always thinking Mattel Electronic Football when I drive.
I used to play an excessive amount of Burnout on the PlayStation. In that game you get points for side-swiping other cars. I found myself targeting and aiming for cars in real life. I stopped playing the game because of that.
I dont go around rolling up cats and stuff when I am driving...
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
I wounder how they would class the kids who learned to drive by racing Karts. Biggest problem with them though is when they get a real drivers license that they are not allowed to nerf cars on the freeways.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68Cht811yNY
If you think karts as in things with the lawn mower engine that was driven around your home - here is a upper-level kart race clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2o--m0wsu0
While driving, an amusing point and counterpoint occurred to me many years ago:
[young person] It terrifies me to think that I’m sharing the road with people who grew up before the era of videogame sensory overload.
[old person] It terrifies me to think that I’m sharing the road with people who learned to drive in an environment where they’re used to having three lives.
Out here we have real a-hole drivers that drive around like they are in some sort of Grand Prix, when in reality they're just grand pricks. They are ALWAYS young guys, many of them young asian guys in souped up rice rockets with spoilers and noise manchine mufflers. I think the connection is fair.
"Men willingly believe what they wish." - Julius Caesar
See, I knew they'd find the cause of all this reckless driving. Now if they could only unearth what videogame causes all those Catholic Priests to become pedophiles. And which videogame turns ordinary muslims into suicide bombers. Then we'd have all the world's problems solved.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
You think that's bad...? What about the time I went driving with the radio on right after my all-night Amplitude gaming session?
Bow-ties are cool.
I've always wondered my driving was so reckless... and why I felt compelled to throw turtle shells out my window.
I would no more drive a car immediately after playing a racing game than I would drive a car after having a couple of drinks.
How many more blue turtle shell massacres must there be before lawmakers learn?!?
The car accident death rate for teen male drivers and passengers is more than one and a half times female teen driver (19.4 killed per 100,000 male drivers compared with 11.1 killed per 100,000 female drivers.
Have you read my blog lately?
blip... blip... blip.... bzzzzt.
Pretty clear sequence of events here: teens play "Initial D" in arcade, fail to drift & crash:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUd6Z1rWGLc
Although I would blame the game not for its content but its simplistic physics
It really sounds like video games are convenient scapegoats for convenient scapegoat ideas.
Video games should stop having scapegoat-like qualities, and start actually doing these things instead.
During slow periods (or "important research") at my last job, we spent hours playing Grand Theft Auto in the office. On the way home from work I had to resist the temptation to side-swipe a cop in downtown Palo Alto, and even more amazing was I didn't feel the need to hit the breaks going around the corner, and I squealed the whole way around the corner. And I was already a 20 year driving veteran who is getting more cautious as time goes by. I cannot imagine what a teenager would be like under the same circumstances. I am sure they would be playing a lot more than I, as well.
I wonder how many other links between harmless and harmful behaviors can be discovered due to them sharing the same demographic.
Maybe law enforcement should start monitoring the behavior of certain character actors; just in case they decide to turn homicidal off stage.
I am now 29 yrs old and learned to drive like an asshole by playing Gran Turismo, GRID and other semi-realistic "driving simulation" video games. I recently purchased a new EVO and I drive much like I learned to in video games. I expect to die someday in a terrific car crash.
Car crashes are the number one cause of death of people in/around 4-26. Some years it is 5-27, others 4-24, etc.
Either way, the leading cause of death for all people of school age-from pre-school all the way to college is car crashes.
Turning it into a teen thing is, at best, sloppy reporting; at worst, it's bigoted.
Didnt an article just come out a couple of days ago where video gamers have the reflexes of a fighter pilot? Apparently this study didn't take better reflexes into account... Frankly it's probably a case of poor decision making from inexperience, as with all teenage drivers. This is why Driver's Ed exist, to give them some experience so they aren't so stupid... I'd also like to point out I played a driving video game in Driver's Ed and I'm such a reckless driver that I'm actually dead! /sarcasm off
Correlation != Causation
Other factors relevant in later age groups, such as cancers, are almost non-existent for that age group
I found some studies a while back. Can't find the link now
...at least personally.
I remember after playing Need for Speed for a few hours with my friends (the original one that came out on the 3DO) we would go out to get something eat and found that our reflexes were still reacting to the game while the driving the real car. We found it amusing that our brain was telling us to take the turn at full-speed and cut the guy next to us off, but that was about it.
Hands up everyone here who thought, before reading this or the tags, that correlation was the same as causation. Anybody?
OK, so now hands up everyone who thinks we need to tag every story about a study with "correlationisnotcausation"?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Actually, I've read other studies about driving games and their effects on real driving - and the one correlation they were able to find was a very temporary one. (EG. If you *just* finished an hour of playing an action-packed high-speed driving game, and proceeded to get in the car and go to the store? You were more likely to drive above the speed limit, make quick lane changes, etc. than if you didn't.) But the effect very quickly faded, too.
I don't really think the fact you can "crash repeatedly with no consequences" in a game affects your risk-assessment skills though. At least, it really shouldn't in a typical person. I think most of us see a pretty big distinction, even at a subconscious level, between sitting in front of a TV or monitor screen, driving a computer-generated vehicle using a game controller (or even plastic driving wheel and pedals), and getting in a real car and driving it. Perhaps if people were playing with full-fledged "driving simulators" where they felt all the same forces they'd feel in a real car as they went into a sharp turn, slammed on the brakes, etc. etc. -- and if the whole experience promised it was an "accurate simulation" vs. a make-believe game scenario, it would be different.....
Tetris is singlehandedly responsible for a dramatic increase in sudden lane-changes as you approach a stop-light.
Sean
Dear Mr. Reg Chapman.
How can someone call themselves a professional journalist when my eighth grade history teacher would give me a failing grade because I didn't list my sources. Honestly...
"A new study"? Really? By whom?
I would really like to vet this information you presented but I have only the names of the people in your article. We have: Zack Stewart, video game player and Dr. David Walsh, founder Mind Positive Parenting. I guess it's the second guy but is he really the guy who did this "new study"? Or some guy you called up and asked about this "new study"? Are you attempting to attach more credibility due to this mystery study by omitting the source and attaching Dr. David Walsh to it via his quotes?
Sorry Mr. Reg Chapman, you may have had something very important to say, I may even agree with some of what you point out, but without following the basic rule of citing your source you don't lend yourself much credibility. I looked up Dr. David Walsh, went to some of the websites listed in his Wiki entry but didn't find a study that even resembled what you've cited. My obligation to believe what you have to say ends there.
I've lost all my marbles except one & It's fun to test angular & centripetal acceleration in my skull
Speaking for myself, I can confirm that my car sucks when driving it immediately after either playing Grand Turismo or going go-kart racing (of any kind). That doesn't mean I don't attempt to drive it with a heavy food immediately after, just that the true acceleration in it is very disappointing compared to the perceived acceleration in the games or cornering of the go-karts.
Para mi, I need a good 30 minutes of non-racing activity before I should get behind the wheel of a real vehicle and be a safe driver again.
And I'm not some 20-something kid - 45 yr old here.
Everyone who has cancer also sleeps, therefore sleep must give you cancer.
I can relate to this, driving is a scary prospect after a mario kart marathon... especially when you drive past a fruit stall
Videogames definitely help. My roommate and I played one of the burnouts for x-box for a few hours one night. Early the next morning while driving to work, I lost control of my jeep during a rainstorm while driving on an overpass. Thanks to my sweet drifting burnout skills, my instant response was to tap the brake, swing the rear end of my jeep into the wall to bounce off and straighten out. It worked like a charm. Had I not played for hours the night before, I think I would've wrecked, having never faced a loss of control on rain-slick pavement at 80 mph in real life.
Rooting for the yankees is like rooting for herpes.
I don't see what the problem is, just turn damage off before you get in the car.
Years ago, in 1995, after several hours of play in one of those sit-down competitive racing games at Dave & Buster's, on the way home I caught myself about to sideswipe the car next to me on the highway. And this was with very outdated graphics ...
I once put my car in a ditch on the snowy access road of the industrial park I used to work. It hadn't been plowed yet, and had 6 inches or so worth of sloppy, driven-on snow. I'd been playing a lot of Gran Turismo lately (GT3?), especially Rally courses, so I was having fun sliding sideways down the road. It was great until the road bent downhill, and the driveway into the lot had an upward slope. I just slid into the ditch at the bottom of that "V" as I took the turn too fast. Had to climb out of the sun roof on my BMW since the car was on its side. Luckily the foot of snow in the ditch kept the passenger side from taking too much damage.
So yes, I am an idiot in that statistic.
I've built up so much character I have an alter-ego
Not only GTA is to blame. I bet these people spent to much time playing Frogger back in the day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLxTZRlz0j4
I used to work for a software gaming company, and we received the development contract for Motoracer 2 by DSL. So I ended up playing that game for hours and hours every day. Never thought much of it until I was driving home from work on night after a 40 something hour work day (yeah, we would pull those kinds of shifts towards the end of a project), and I was driving through the Caldecott Tunnel in the Bay Area of California when I started thinking: "If I accelerate now, bounce off that car on the left, hit the wall on the right, I could probably end up in front of this group of cars that seems to be slowing me down." And I almost did it. Then suddenly I realized, crap, this isn't a game!
Dont hate the game. Hate the player.