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The Courts Government Entertainment Games News

Need for Speed Unconnected to Fatal Crash 198

Posted by Zonk from the games-!=-life dept.
BStorm writes "There was a horrific crash in Toronto yesterday. It involved two 18 year olds, each racing their parent's Mercedes. One of racers hit a taxi turning left killing the taxi driver. The other left the scene. EA's Need for Speed was found on the passenger seat of one of the racers. Police are investigating the possibility that the racing and subsequent crash was connected with the game." Update: 01/26 20:53 GMT by Z : GamePolitics points out a more thorough article on the subject which quotes the officers involved as being against the jist of the Globe and Mail article. From that article: "Det. Lobsinger was careful not to blame the video game for Tuesday's accident. 'There is a small percentage who have difficulty separating reality and simulation, fantasy. It's a very, very small percentage,' he said. 'This was not the game's fault. There are millions who play this game and don't go out and do this.' The way to prevent these tragedies is to teach young drivers to have respect for the road, he said." Title changed to reflect more accurate article.
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Need for Speed Unconnected to Fatal Crash More

Need for Speed Unconnected to Fatal Crash

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  • Oh come on... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CountZero117 ( 921222 ) on Thursday January 26, 2006 @01:27PM (#14569401)
    What if they found a copy of the fast and the furious in one of the cars? i guess it'd be the movies fault then right? oh wait... movies aren't a pariah subject like gaming, my bad.

    • Blame the drivers, not movies or games (Score:5, Insightful)

      by RevDobbs ( 313888 ) * on Thursday January 26, 2006 @01:32PM (#14569471) Homepage

      Throw the kids in jail.

      If the parents make a peep about suing EA under the pretense that "they are just kids and didn't know what they were doing", charge them with child negligence -- first, with providing them access to such a dangerous video game, and second by providing them access to their cars.

      • Since when is an 18 year-old a child? 18 year-olds can vote, have children, get credit cards, drive, serve in the armed forces, smoke, buy guns... but they are still too young to take responsibility for their own actions (or drink alcohol)?

      • Re:Blame the drivers, not movies or games (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Valdrax ( 32670 ) on Thursday January 26, 2006 @02:07PM (#14569980)
        If the parents make a peep about suing EA under the pretense that "they are just kids and didn't know what they were doing", charge them with child negligence -- first, with providing them access to such a dangerous video game, and second by providing them access to their cars.

        I think you've hit the nail on the head right there. If video games are such a corrupting influence, then where's the parent's responsibility in such instances?

        Look at all the great examples of kids who went crazy or did something stupid and the media blamed it on video games. What's the other common element behind them? Neglectful parents who fail to actually act as parents to their kids. With video game ratings in place, I think that any parent who whines, "But we didn't know!" should be slapped with negligence for failing to bother to get informed about the kind of thing their kids do.
      • Alexander Ryazanov, a York University student, has been charged with criminal negligence causing death

        University student? WTF? This is just sick there is no way someone can pursue a "higher" education on one hand and blame a video game for car racing on the other.

        If these adults even think of passing the buck I say throw the book at them. They are educated and posess mild inteligence, they definately knew the diffrence.

        But of course so far the only ones tying the game to the event are the media and t
      • Duuude... Your sig, your comment... Pure... synergy.
    • > What if they found a copy of the fast and the furious in one of the cars? i guess it'd be the movies fault then right? oh wait... movies aren't a pariah subject like gaming, my bad.

      Put yourself in your Senator's shoes. One industry lobbyist offers you a line of cocaine from between some Hollywood starlet's tits. The other industry lobbyist offers you a can of Jolt cola and apologizes for his clients' manboobs. Whose industry would you hand out the pork to?

  • The game is not to blame (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Psmylie ( 169236 ) * on Thursday January 26, 2006 @01:28PM (#14569403) Homepage
    The game has nothing to do with it. This was caused by a couple of people acting like idiots. Illegal street racing has been around since... well, since cars were invented.
    That won't stop people from holding this up as more evidence that games are evil, though. I should take bets on how long it takes Jack Thompson to chime in.
    • Street racing has been around since cars were invented. Illegal street racing has been around since people got tired of kids dying and damaging property and passed laws forbidding it.
      The most amusing one I know of is in the Seattle area where one of the cities has posted signs saying that street racing is illegal between 10PM and 5AM. Apparently its legal to do during the day, just not at night.
    • Street racing has been around since before cars. My Grandfather used to tell stories of racing the streets on horseback. Never heard of any buggies getting totalled, though...

    • This was caused by a couple of people acting like idiots.

      (This is going to be a blatently classist rant, so you can gloss over it if you're sensitive to that kinda stuff)

      Clearly they were spoiled brats if they had unfettered access to their parents' luxury automobiles. I know some upper-middle and middle class people with Mercedes-Benz's, but, uniformly a) their children are not allowed to drive them except in an emergency and b) they buy the kids crappy little Hondas or (in the case of one guy whose

    • Street racing predates cars. My grandfather, who constantly complains about how bad young'uns are nowadays, likes to talk about how he knocked down an entire wall of their neighbor's barn when he and his friend accross the road were racing farm tractors.

      As bad as us young'un's are, I have to say: my youthful mischief never resulted in the demolition of a building, the death of a domestic animal with body weight exceeding one pound, anybody rolling down a hill inside of an outdoor toilet, or my school teache

  • Did the cars have leather seats? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Andy_R ( 114137 ) on Thursday January 26, 2006 @01:28PM (#14569405) Homepage Journal
    If so then the police should also give equal attention to investigating the possibility that the fatal crash was connected with cows. It's about as relevant.
    • No, I think you're being a bit silly there.

      The game has relevance - Det. Lobsinger said. 'You have this game that's all about fast cars and racing through city streets. It's actually really ironic,' he said.

      Leather seats mean nothing, whereas the least you can say about the game is it's an amusing coincidence, given its theme.

      I think you need to be aware that there's a difference between two utterly unrelated facts and two fact that could be related but are not necessarily causally related.

      In th

  • Who to blame? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HugePedlar ( 900427 ) on Thursday January 26, 2006 @01:28PM (#14569408) Homepage
    Almost a flamebait-worthy article...

    Anyway, who should we blame? The game for, well, you know? The Parents for allowing kids to drive their overpowered cars?

    I blame the kids for being dicks, personally.

    • Re:Who to blame? (Score:5, Funny)

      by TexVex ( 669445 ) on Thursday January 26, 2006 @02:07PM (#14569982)
      I blame the kids for being dicks, personally.
      Well, since this happened in Toronto, how about:

      Sharon: Should we blame the government?
      Liane: Or blame society?
      Dads: Or should we blame the images on TV?
      Sheila: No, blame Canada!
      Everyone: Blame Canada!
      Sheila: With all their beady little eyes And flappin' heads so full of lies
      Everyone: Blame Canada!

  • What the Toronto Police Said About the Incident (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nevek ( 196925 ) on Thursday January 26, 2006 @01:29PM (#14569421) Homepage
    Investigators found a copy of the video game Need For Speed in one of the cars. The game involves street racing, drag racing and pursuit racing, where players attempt to evade police.

    The discovery prompted police to point out the difference between the digital world, and reality.

    "A game is a game," Toronto Police's Det. Paul Lobsinger told CTV Toronto. "And when you get behind the wheel of a car it's not a game anymore. And when something tragic happens in a huge crash with a lot of smoke, there is no reset button. You can't start over with a new car and a new life."

    http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNew s/20060125/street_race_060125/20060125/ [www.ctv.ca]

    Its pretty silly to blame a video game; if they had a copy of Spyro the Dragon or Grand Theft Auto and the news hit the media this hard I'm sure they would have blamed those games as well..

    • Re:What the Toronto Police Said About the Incident (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Vengeance ( 46019 ) on Thursday January 26, 2006 @01:33PM (#14569497)
      Yeah, and 15 years ago they would have blamed Heavy Metal Music.

      And 25 years ago they would have blamed Dungeons and Dragons.

      Fifty or so years ago, they blamed horror comic books of all things, to the point where we *still* have a stupid label on most of 'em indicating they've got 'approved' content.

      Every now and then, someone does something stupid, and a crusade is launched against some sort of fun a lot of young people are having.
      • It's easy to look at this from a "here come the idiots to steal our fun" slant, but the Toronto Police quote in the parent seems pretty reasonable to me.

        As for the video game, I don't think that it's really the problem here. Yes, the kids probably did play it, and it probably put stupid ideas in their heads. But the real problem is that they were not yet mature enough to have the good judgement not to race their cars on public streets.

        Rather than blame video games, we should simply prohibit kids from

        • I live in Toronto and what do I hear from my alarm clock this morning? An interview with a Toronto police officer regarding this crash, the host (andy barrie, who's not normally a douche-bag but was acting like one this morning) was trying his hardest to get the cop to blame the game, but the cop was all "I've had this game in my home, my kids have played it, real life is not a game" etc... a very balanced and thoughful position actually.

          The media is doing it's normal job trying to make headlines, nothing m

        • Rather than blame video games, we should simply prohibit kids from driving. Sixteen is simply way too young. Twenty-one would be more like it, though maybe yet still too young...

          Err, read the article again. These were two eighteen year olds, not sixteen. 18, by definition, is an adult. When you are 18, you should be expected to be mature enough to think on your own. 18 year olds are expected to have common sense and are expected to have "grown up." These were two immature adults who decided to stre

        • That's all fine and dandy except that once you get out of the major US cities with public transportation, how is a 16 year old, or for that matter a legally adult 18 year old, supposed to get around? How are they supposed to get their first job? Etc., etc. ad infinitum. The point is, you have to choose an age, and it seems to me that 2 years before your legal adulthood isn't too bad of an idea. That gives you 2 years to drive and learn how to drive before you move out on your own and have to really star
      • How on earth did you get +5 Insightful? The Toronto Police AREN'T blaming videogames, if anything you could construe the statement to be "keep the crazy racing to the consoles, kids."

        Street racing has been a growing problem in Toronto for the past several years, I don't think that anyone here is under the impression that videogames caused the increase.

        I would argue that the growing popularity of tuner culture and street racing in the popular consciousness might have contributed to these idiots picking this
    • when I had left a copy of Katamari Damancy on the passenger seat!
      Why doesn't anyone ever mention that these kids might have bought Need for Speed because they were already into car racing - why is it always the other way around?

  • Another logical fallacy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by voice_of_all_reason ( 926702 ) on Thursday January 26, 2006 @01:30PM (#14569439)
    "Correlation does not imply causality"

    May I present another scenario? The kids were already attracted to racing because its hella cool, and that caused both the interest in Need For Speed as well as the accident

  • No. Being Retarded Connected to Fatal Crash (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hattig ( 47930 ) on Thursday January 26, 2006 @01:30PM (#14569444) Journal
    People who cannot disconnect fake things (games, books, movies) from reality, or indeed people who haven't got an ounce of common sense in their heads, shouldn't be allowed access to the things that might set them off.

    This game didn't cause them to crash. Their speeding and racing on a public road did.

    A game is just that, a game. Reading a book about murder doesn't cause people to kill.

    18 year olds should be old enough to discern the differences. If they aren't, then they shouldn't be given adult status - no cars, no cigarettes, no guns, no alcohol.

  • Ummm... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by truthsearch ( 249536 ) on Thursday January 26, 2006 @01:30PM (#14569446) Homepage Journal
    It's actually really ironic

    No it's not. It's a coincidence. If he's not smart enough to know the definition of ironic how smart will his investigation be?
  • We need more non-violent games like Stacker [theonion.com] -- a first-person vertical-crate-arranger guaranteed not to influence young people's behavior in any way. Check out the screen shots. Awesome graphics.

  • Games are nothing new (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 77Punker ( 673758 ) <(ude.tniophgih) (ta) (40rcneps)> on Thursday January 26, 2006 @01:32PM (#14569468)
    Games about illegal street racing started in the late 70's (as far as I know) with a game called "Datsun 280 ZZaapp!". Games like that have been around for nearly 30 years, but people with both of the characteristics foolish and irresponsible have been around far longer. A better way to place blame here is on the individuals responsible first, parents next in line.

    I have a few Need for Speed games and I drive a car with a V8 that's (supposedly) capable of going 150 mph. Do I race my car? Hell no! I'm not going to risk my vehicle and my life for a cheap thrill I could get by either playing a video game or going on a roller coaster.

    I also play Animal Crossing, but I can't remember the last time I went out catching bugs or fishing, and I don't really have any plans to do either. Games are a diversion from real life, not a mirror of it.
    • I'm not going to risk my vehicle and my life for a cheap thrill I could get by either playing a video game or going on a roller coaster.

      The key words there are "my vehicle." These kids were racing their parents' Mercedes and are noting as attending and exclusive boys school. They're probably spoiled-rotten, little rich kids. I doubt their families have taught them a thing about responsibility. Maybe they would've valued those cars a little more if they'd earned the money to own them themselves.
      • Even "my vehicle" doesn't make a whole lot of difference compared to "my life". I'm 20 and I can't afford car insurance and I couldn't afford to buy my own car when I got it. My parents understood my need for a vehicle and my personality and decided that I was fit to drive a car so they bought one for me. Sure, it's registered in my name, but I don't pay the insurance and I didn't pay for the vehicle. Also, I went to private schools most of my life and I'm an only child. Based on those facts, many would ass

  • So... (Score:5, Funny)

    by sevenoverzero ( 740419 ) on Thursday January 26, 2006 @01:33PM (#14569483) Homepage
    When can we blame Bush's war in Iraq on Call of Duty or SOCOM?
    • When can we blame Bush's war in Iraq on Call of Duty or SOCOM?

      When we find a copy of one of those games on the presidential desk, apparently.
  • Considering that drag racing has probably been around as long as teenagers have had cars... I doubt there's a connection.
  • We must ban parent's mercedes!
  • My beef with attempting to link videogames and crime is all correllation vs. causation. Certainly it may be possible to show that people who commit certain types of crimes may also own/play video games on the same topic. People like Mr. Thompson from florida (who as far as I know hasn't weighed in on this one yet) will claim that the playing of the game was a cause of the crime. However, the data only provides a corellation. It is equally likely (or if you ask me, more likely) that people inclined to co
  • Just last week my girlfriend watched both Bullitt [imdb.com] and The French Connection [imdb.com], and wouldn't you know it, the very next day she had a car accident!

    I guess it's back to Tele-Tubbies [bbc.co.uk] and Woody Allen [imdb.com] movies for her!

    • One day, my kid was watching Teletubbies, and wouldn't you know it, the very next day she'd constructed a strange Orwellian closed-box experiment consisting of four deformed, fat, homosexual retardates.

      These unfortuante test subejcts would receive random instructions from one of a number of microphones which could pop out of anywhere, and would also be introduced to new items and toys, to see how they'd interact with both said items, and each other.

      They were also fed narctoic, highly addictive substance

    • I guess it's back to Tele-Tubbies and Woody Allen movies for her!

      Why? Do you want her turning into a lesbian and then sleeping with your daughter?

  • Make No Mistake Though (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Azarael ( 896715 ) on Thursday January 26, 2006 @01:42PM (#14569620) Homepage
    Any attempt by anti-gaming groups to use this sad incident as ammunition will be completely bogus. As far as anyone should be concerned, University Students, no matter what their age aught to be held fully accountable for their actions, without any stupid 'outside influence' factors.
  • Introducing one of the more intelligent detectives, damn than Canada:

    Det. Lobsinger said. 'You have this game that's all about fast cars and racing through city streets. It's actually really ironic,'

    It is ironic. I'm glad to see he didn't jump the gun, at least in the article, and say it was the cause.

    Kids have been racing for years. Long before need for speed was impossible. Hell, back in the days before NES kids raced. In the 50's kids raced. There's no connection other than it was in there. It may have g

  • I have this crazy idea (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pclminion ( 145572 ) on Thursday January 26, 2006 @01:45PM (#14569660)
    Now, let me know right away if I need to be committed to a mental institution, but...

    Could it be that this moron possesses a copy of Need for Speed because... He's a crazy street racer and likes that kind of shit?

  • Backwards causality. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Digital_Quartz ( 75366 ) on Thursday January 26, 2006 @01:45PM (#14569670) Homepage
    I think it's far more likely that kids interested in street racing would go buy a copy of NFS, than it is that kids would buy a copy of NFS and THEN become interested in racing. The article's implied causality is backwards.

  • How Sad (Score:5, Funny)

    by techsoldaten ( 309296 ) * on Thursday January 26, 2006 @01:45PM (#14569674) Journal
    How sad is it that we have all these video games, portraying violent and reckless behavior in a realistic setting, and people are going out repeating the acts they see in the games? I'm confident that, were we to remove all video games which could possibly influence people's actions in any way, we could eliminate things like crime, insane recklessness, and war. I am certain there are statistics that show a causal relationship between an increase in car accidents and the release of 'Need for Speed'.

    If you consider what else goes on in video games besides just shooting police officers, driving like an epileptic having a grand mal seizure with the gas pedal glued down, or all this rock music playing in the background of said games, the picture becomes a lot more frightening. Consider Tetris, where you stack boxes only to make them go away. The artificial reduction in inventory so graphically displayed and used as a form of amusement has to be terrifying to warehouse owners worldwide. Imagine the impressions left on young people playing that game who will someday grow up to be forklift operators. There is no greater threat to a country's GNP than a game that glorifies stacking things with the intention of destroying them.

    For a better example, consider the game Doom. You are put in a world where all the lights are turned off, given a wide array of guns, and told to shoot anything that does not look like you. It is only a matter of time before kids across America start turning the lights off in their homes to conserve electricity, which directly impacts the number of kilowatt hours sold by utility companies. Not to mention the fact that shooting things that don't look like you with massive weapons is a poor way for people to socialize. It's games like this that lead to the rise in rampant xenophobia in the midwest, and prevent people from different backgrounds from achieving common goals and working towards a better world.

    The game that most frightens me, with it's emersive environments, realistic use of weaponry, and insanely graphic fight sequences is one we have all learned to fear. Gauntlet. As soon as I hear 'Red Warrior needs food badly', I know that my 12 year old is headed to the nearest refrigerator to eat a massive plate of ham. The fact that he is 4 foot 2 and weighs 340 lbs is a direct consequence of playing this game filled with subliminal references to consuming massive amounts of nourishment in the pursuit of endlessly regenerating imps, trolls, things with gas masks and ghosts. When I hear 'That was a heroic effort', the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as I know this means the kid is not going to leave the front of that television for at least another 2 hours. There is no force on Earth capable of preventing kids from playing these games endlessly, and someone needs to stand up and do something about it.

    M

  • "These are not the two boys I would imagine would have been involved in something like this. It's very unfortunate," Mr. Shrimpton said, adding that neither had a car at school.

    Maybe if they had their own little shitboxen they wouldn't have been racing mom's mercedes.

    When something is forbidden, it becomes desirable...

  • *sigh* (Score:5, Insightful)

    by thesnarky1 ( 846799 ) on Thursday January 26, 2006 @01:50PM (#14569739) Homepage

    Guys... lets just not do the "but... how can you blame X" comments. They don't work. We can see that... guess I better break my own advice.

    There is nothing linking the game to the accident, besides the theme of the game, and the kids being idiots. So what, it's about racing. So's a bunch of movies, and a big American past-time (NASCAR). If that were a NASCAR DVD, would it be blamed? Well, I suppose it's not in an "urban" setting. Ok, what about "Fast and the Furious", or it's sequel? "Gone in 60 Seconds"? I suppose they weren't specifically stealing the cars...

    NEWS FLASH: TEENAGERS DO STUPID THINGS.

    As a teen myself (for another month) I can say yes, that's a very fitting description. Now, these parents have some nice money (they were racing "luxary cars"), sent them to an exclusive high school (at 35 grand a year, more then I pay for out of state tuition!), and were OUT OF TOWN.

    Defence lawyer Edward Prutschi, who represents Mr. Ryazanov, said his client's parents were out of town at the time of the accident and are heading home to Toronto.

    Now come on... you leave the kids at home, nice luxary car, and they go do crazy things like drive 130 kilometers per hour... oh, yea, that's only 80 miles per hour. Having played Need For Speed, I can tell you it is VERY easy to exceed that speed VERY quickly, in fact, 80 mph wouldn't win you even the first race. Hell, When I drive home, I average 85 mph, though the speed limit's only 75, and I get passed. Why? Because that's not such an unsafe speed, surely NOT racing. This is a little bit of joyriding, and the idiot driver didn't see a taxi. Now, someone is dead, and it's time to play the Blame Game.

    Can we blame the boys? No, "They're very nice kids. Very quiet, soft-spoken. They both did well academically. Certainly not the kind of kids you would expect at all to be racing down a highway." If they wouldn't be expected to, something must have made them, right?

    The parents then? nope, it's never the parent's fault in this day and age. Even though they were out of town. "Defence lawyer Edward Prutschi, who represents Mr. Ryazanov, said his client's parents were out of town at the time of the accident and are heading home to Toronto."

    Perhaps the car then? "...Mr. Shrimpton said, adding that neither had a car at school." Damn, no history of driving a car at school, guess they weren't reckless.

    Or.. wait... idea. These kids finally get out of school, feel like normal teenagers, unable to be hurt, and go joyriding. Just this once, right, since our parents are out of town. Not racing, just speeding. BAM...uh-oh... we've got a problem. Cops show up, and have to have a motive (everything has a motive). In the end, the game gets blamed.

    Interesting thing to note here, no one ever says that they've played the game. No one said it was out of the package. They might've just bought it have no clue about game-play, yet that doesn't matter. Some lawyer will jump on this, make a big outcry about the horror of video games (of any genre) and politicians will all conspire and pass condolances. In the end, it'll be like every other suit, these "boys" will get sentenced, and life will go on.

    Except for the man they killed. negligence, manslaughter, call it what you will, he's not coming back. That is the real travisty here, not that a game is being blamed, that's natural today, but a man died, due to stupidity. Let this be a lesson, not to game manufacturors, designers, or players. Not to lawyers, or politicians, but to parents, adults, and kids. When you do something stupid, someone might get hurt. Someone might get killed, and you have to live with it. These "boys" (legal adults, mind you) will forever have to live with the fact that they killed a man trying to earn a living, something they won't have to due to their parent's money. I hope they're happy, and I hope ya'll have fun fighting out how stupid it is to blame the game, missing the real point once again.

    Rest in Peace, Mr. Khan.

  • Give me a break. This is just people not wanting to take responsibilty for thier actions. The kids were acting the fool, plain and simple.
  • The previous generation saw American Graffiti on theaters, and despite the fiery crash in the movie, went on to even more hot-rodding, street racing action. Perhaps the problem is hmmm... NOT VIDEO GAMES?

  • Insurance to the rescue... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Pig Hogger ( 10379 ) <(moc.liamg) (ta) (reggoh.gip)> on Thursday January 26, 2006 @01:56PM (#14569826) Journal
    For cases such as this, insurance companies could play a large role.

    Whenever a young punk borrows a parent's car and causes an accident, the insurance company should not pay a cent in compensation; it's the parents that should be sued directly. Unfortunately, though, Canada does not permit punitive damages (and in such a case, insurance companies shall be prohibited from paying punitive damages, and they shall also be excluded from bankrupcy).

    Another option is to use modern technology ("Please insert your driver's license - thank you. You have 3 points left on your license, mister Dallas") to mandate that cars driven by less than 30 year olds have a speed limited to less than 80 kilometers per hour.

    • Yes, because people less than 30 years old don't have the perceptive ability to drive that fast. Also, women shouldn't be allowed to drive because they're dumb. Wealthy middle aged men who buy BMW's shouldn't be allowed to drive either because they're recklessly self centered. Also, let's not forget about those pesky racial minorities....

      Bad decisions are bad decisions no matter who you are. Stereotyping doesn't help.
  • I won't deny that the game may have influenced this particular behavior. But kids are clearly impressionable idiots. If it wasn't Need for Speed it might have been Grand Theft Auto or hell even Mario Kart.
  • Wang-Piao Dumani Ross, a Ryerson University student, has been charged with criminal negligence causing death and failing to stop after the accident.

    Failing to stop after the accident (which did not directly involve him) breaks the law?

    So hypothetical situation - If, driving down a Canadian highway during a snowstorm I see someone go off the road but keep driving, will they come after me for failing to stop? Sure, you might call such a non-stopper an asshole, but a criminal?


    I would also have to ques
    • As the two were racing together that would make this fellow an involved party, wouldn't you say? If I make someone murder someone else, even though I've not actually done the killing I'm one hell of a related party to the crime.

    • Failing to stop after the accident (which did not directly involve him) breaks the law?

      So hypothetical situation - If, driving down a Canadian highway during a snowstorm I see someone go off the road but keep driving, will they come after me for failing to stop? Sure, you might call such a non-stopper an asshole, but a criminal?

      I would also have to question the "leading to death" part (he didn't hit the taxi), but I can see that as a bit more a matter of interpretation. But not an accident... Either

    • I don't know about Canada, but in the US you are obliged to assist all you can once you begin to help; if you see someone go off the road and keep going, you're just being callous. However, if you stop and try to help, but decide that you don't want to get your shoes muddy, you can be sued. You have a legal obligation to finish what you started.
      • You have a legal obligation to finish what you started.

        And what if I stop my car, assess the situation, and realize the fact if I try to save the hapless person it could put my life and danger and get ME killed?'

        Screw all stupid liability laws, that's when I would just dial 911.
        • I don't believe stopping your car counts as action; slowing down (or even stopping) to watch a traffic accident does not mean you have liability because you didn't help. It's more like, you started to pull the vicim out of the car, decided you didn't want her blood on your outfit, and bailed. I believe the test is an explicit decision to cease assistance; if the sight of blood makes you pass out, and you do pass out while helping her, then you have not opened yourself up to liability.
    • Failing to stop after the accident (which did not directly involve him) breaks the law?

      But it did involve him; he and his buddy were racing together. Just because he wasn't actually in the crash doesn't mean he wasn't involved in the accident overall. It's like conspiracy; if you plan with someone to commit a crime, even if you aren't the actual one who commits the crime, you're still criminally responsible. I'm not saying these guys planned a fatal collision, but it was a consequence of their racing toge

  • The linked article merely comments that the game was found in the front seat. This is a game about racing cars in the street. They were racing cars in the street. They should at least look into whether there's some sort of connection. The kids are being charged with criminal negligence, as they should be.

    The slant of the article is more what a terrible tragedy this is. And I think we can all agree on this.
  • A friend of mine is an amateur street racer. He likes racing movies, racing games, racing comics, etc.

    However, the races he participates in are done carefully, at specific hours at night, and the friends of the competitors block the streets to prevent innocent drivers from getting hurt in those races.

    I wonder if Need for Speed has accidents like this one happen in the game, or the requirement that you'll need to organize your team to block the streets so you won't lose the race, get your car trashed, die or
  • I was driving down the highway listening to "I can't drive 55" by Sammy Hagar. I looked at the speedo and indeed, I was not driving 55.
  • They warn kids every time you start up the game not to street race and to be safe. The kids are just stupid, has anyone ever considered that the game just may actually keep them OFF the streets, at least while they're playing it? It's a tradgedy that this happened, but kids were racing and killing people long before computers existed. So pointing the blame at a game is bullshit.

    Other Places they could have been influenced by racing
    1. TV
    2. Movies
    3. Friends
    4. Parents
    5. Maybe they just pressed the ga
  • It seems strange for the game to be in the car during that incident? Maybe just bought it? Opened already and taking it to somewhere?
  • This will get modded down so modders don't waste time reading the rest. I am talking to the free people who read at -1 anyway.

    Almost everyone here comments that there is no connection it is just coincedence nothing more and that the media would have blamed loud music just 10 years ago.

    Blah blah blah. We have a game that is about street racing apparently having been played by a couple of real street races YET THERE IS NO CONNECTION. That is whacked up logic worthy of Jack Thompson.

    Could it possibly be tha

  • EA's Need for Speed was found on the passenger seat of one of the racers. Police are investigating the possibility that the racing and subsequent crash was connected with the game.

    WTF other game are kids into street racing going to be playing? Bible Adventures? [seanbaby.com]

    That's like being amazed when people who want to go on shooing rampages play FPS games or when hunters play Deer Hunter. People who like to do something for fun.. often enjoy simulations of the same thing. Duh!

    People who experience street racing th
  • While I agree that this article is pretty silly, I personally can't drive on the street after driving in a racing game for at least 15 minutes.

    I have actual steering hardware with force feedback and overall a fairly realistic environment. It's pretty much the only way for me to stay in control on the freeway at a boring 65mph because I know I can drive much faster in a game without any risk.

    However, I think that the brain is not as easily switched from driving something like Crazy Taxi (not a realistic sim,
  • Worried in West Springfield writes "There was a horrific crash in Toronto yesterday. ... Dole's Pineapples were found in the grocery bag on the back seat. Police are investigating the possibility that the racing and subsequent crash was connected with the exotic fruits." From the article: "The pineapples police found in the car are delicous, but contain a large amount of fruit sugar (fructose), Det. Lobsinger said. 'You have these fruits that are all juicy and healthy. It's actually really ironic,' he said,

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