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Video Games Linked To Reckless Driving

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the causation-tag-here-we-come dept.

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?"

5 of 337 comments (clear)

  1. I for one welcome this by AlastairLynn · · Score: 5, Funny

    Frankly, there are too many of these damn kids around anyway.

    1. Re:I for one welcome this by ch-chuck · · Score: 5, Funny

      Get your car off my lawn!

      --
      try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
  2. I found the opposite by localman57 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:I found the opposite by hoggoth · · Score: 5, Funny

      I was really into Marble Madness. After playing the game, I found myself bouncing off walls and dropping into manhole covers.

      --
      - For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat /dev/random (may take some time)
  3. Spy Hunter by Stargoat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.