Videogame Driving Skills Don't Apply In Real Life 241
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."
Night Driver FTW (Score:5, Interesting)
I still credit the training I received for playing long hours of Night Driver [wikipedia.org] 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.
Mythbusters! (Score:2, Interesting)
Can't RTFA since work blocks Gizmodo (seriously? WTF?). However, my first thought after seeing the article summary was "You know, Grant drives this way in real life all the time on Mythbusters."
Forced? No. (Score:5, Interesting)
The death of 3rd person is coming, the tech is now here to simulate proper driving - so we are doing something in real life that was anachronistic to begin with....
Re:What about this guy...? (Score:4, Interesting)
Speaking only for myself, I can say that Gran Turismo greatly improved my real-life driving skills. I learned about following a line, about preloading suspension, and just about how to generally handle a car. When I first got my Subaru Impreza I was already able to go fast because I knew how an AWD car behaved from playing that game. Some of the skills are clearly not applicable to street driving, but some equally clearly are.
As there's already been an article about how some well-ranked race drivers went to a track and posted better-than-average times, probably as a result of their experience, this article is -1, Troll. It's possible not to learn from playing driving games, but since pro race drivers use off-the-shelf video games to prepare for races, it's all a lot of shit.
also GTA DWU (Score:3, Interesting)
I never liked it. (Score:3, Interesting)
Outside of Mario Kart type games I never liked that view and I've never used it. I never saw it's appeal given that it's difficult to position the car properly on the track or get a proper sense of distance. And that's not to mention you can't even see what's immediately in front of your car. About the only benefit I see is that you could spot another car hiding in your blind spot. It does allow for more of a spectacle when racing. Undoubtedly someone could get good with this view, but that doesn't make for the ideal camera position. Then again, I also never liked the dashboard crowding my view in games. In real life the dashboard isn't as intrusive in my field of vision as it is on the screen.
Re:Night Driver FTW (Score:1, Interesting)
Agreed. I lost control of my vehicle once after an ugly incident with a slick road surface, a set of railroad tracks, and a couple over-corrections. Bad situation that you can argue was more likely because of my experience with so many "Need For Speed" style games, but it could have happened to anyone.
Having been in this situation in virtual environments before, I didn't panic even when I went off into the median, spinning around as I went. I didn't flip my vehicle by doing too much, and I didn't continue into oncoming traffic by freezing up. Instead, I guided the vehicle into a position where I had my rear wheels on pavement again (Thank you random turning lane!), and was able to use the regained traction to stop. Without my experience through gaming, I wouldn't be here to type this now.
Re:WTF? (Score:3, Interesting)
Indeed.
I've noticed my gear changes to be much smoother since I started playing Life for Speed, to the point that a passenger in the back seat commented on the car having a "smooth automatic transmission" while I was driving stick.
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)
The other way around doesn't necessarily hold true. And even the best of the best can have problems against the hardcore gamers:
Video [youtube.com]
This is a Danish language video, but it pitches Tom Kristensen, Mr. Le Mans, eight time winner (a record) in the 24 hour Le Mans, including six times in a row against a Danish hardcore gamer and national champion in GT for the PS2. Game is GT for PS2 on the Le Mans circuit. [wikipedia.org]
Granted, not exactly a fair match-up, as Tom doesn't have much (if any) experience in that game, but he manages to do a 3:23 lap, which is pretty much what he expected to do before they played. By comparison the qualifying times for the 2009 Le Mans was 3:22.888 for pole position.
The gamer ended up at 3:15, which is an insane lap of Le Mans. Obviously not doable in real life, and I suspect most gamers would be scared shitless the first time they ended up in a situation where they feel the back-end sliding a bit, but the point remains - gamers can beat the pros at the games.
Re:Night Driver FTW (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:WTF? (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.dailytech.com/Champion+Gran+Turismo+Gamer+Becomes+Realworld+Racing+Champion/article17035.htm [dailytech.com]
Re:Night Driver FTW (Score:4, Interesting)
the problem is that in the current driving school they teach you to drive in the fairly non standard conditions, at low speed and with good grip. you never get to experience what a car will do when understeering, oversteering, skidding, or on low traction surfaces. that on the assumption that you should always drive safely.
but you can foresee everything and always be safely driving - going on 20mph on interstates is unsafe as going at 150mph, as you're a sitting duck waiting to be tramped from the random right-overtaking truck.
the only way you get to experience the rubber effect of a car suddenly recovering from oversteering is in games. and that saved my ass:
I was overtaking a car, he was at 40mph and the road speed limit was 55, so I started overtaking him when suddenly one car coming out from a garage invaded the lane I was using for overtaking (which was totally clear without any other car incoming)
I hit the brakes with to much force, while turning to return into my lane, and that caused my smal subcompact car to oversteer and this is where a gamer experience came into place: instead of panicking and braking even more, I downshifted and floored the throttle, while counter steering, preventing the car to spin out. which is still something that an unexperienced driver could pull out, but then I anticipated the sudden grip regain putting the steering wheels straight so that when the suspension rebounded from the sudden force now again affecting the wheels, the car was on a neuter configuration and didn't had any sudden change of direction.
by then I had slowed enough to safely get behind the car I was overtaking and dodging the one that invaded the lane. and this happened in a fraction of a second - you can't think about this sort of stuff, you need to have the experience of how car handles while on extreme situations and you just don't get that on real life.
sure, if I had that playing need for spede by now I would be dead, thank god I played a lot of simulators of low power cars, much like mine
Re:WTF? (Score:3, Interesting)
It kind of does. Get them playing something stupidly arcadey like Ridge Racer against the best gamers and things would be very different. If games like GT weren't so close to real life then the race drivers' skills would not apply. Sure some elements in the game are simpler than real life (thinking of stuff like modelling temperature and wear in tyres and the condition of the road surface etc, but some games even attempt to simulate that stuff), but the overall handling characteristics of cars in games these days is very similar to real life.
Re:Night Driver FTW (Score:4, Interesting)
I know you've joking about Rad Racer but it reminds me of a game that really did help me once.
So as for the main title, i.e. @"Videogame Driving Skills Don't Apply In Real Life" ... I totally disagree with this idea. Games really do help.
When I went to America (for the 1st time), I got a hire car. Problem was I had never driven on what I consider the wrong side of the road! (I'm from the UK). That plus I had never driven an Automatic car and I had been awake for over 24 hours straight, which made my first faltering few miles scarily interesting (to say the least) until I happily found the first hotel, which I jumped at the chance of stopping at.
The next day I took a cab into the city and during my initial exploring I by luck found an arcade and so I spent over 2 hours solidly playing Crazy Taxi, driving like a psycho around every road. After 2 hours solid my brain was reprogrammed enough so that I automatically took left and right turns correctly for American roads etc... I wanted to get to the point it was totally second nature for me to do the right thing.
That game helped me so much. After that point it was automatic for me to drive ok on the roads and my 2 week holiday out there, I didn't even attempt to make one mistaken turning after my training on Crazy Taxi.
So games really can be very helpful.
Analog versus Digital (Score:1, Interesting)
If you played racing games with a steering wheel input (e.g., Daytona USA), it might have been a lot easier for you. In many arcades the controls were "broken in," so turning the wheel slightly did hardly anything unless you were at top speed, which is very similar to a real car.
Re:Night Driver FTW (Score:3, Interesting)
I think video game car skills do apply.
I can think of two times:
I was driving home from a ski trip, behind two other cars and one SUV. Car number one goes around a turn, slides on a patch of black ice, and plows into the mountainside. Car #2 brakes, takes it slowly, and slides out into the mountainside. SUV brakes, slides out, hits the mountainside. I hit the patch of black ice and controlled the slide using skills learned (no shit) in Gran Turismo and came out cleanly. Felt pretty bad ass - my friend was cheering.
Likewise I once hydroplaned and used my Mario Kart skills to control through it. Not as epic, I guess.
Re:Night Driver FTW (Score:3, Interesting)
I watch LA drivers do this every day. Kids spend 10+ years driving with a d-pad/joypad before touching a real car.
Watch carefully for drivers changing lanes by bump-bump-bump, and avoid them.