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?"

Kudos

[Lord Grey]

From the last paragraph of TFA:

The findings do not directly link playing video games to reckless driving. They only show an association. Researchers say the impact of playing games like "Grand Theft Auto" is minimal.

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.

Burnout

[DanCentury]

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.

Re:Kids are kids

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't actually Socrates or Plato who said that. It was me.

http://books.google.com/books?id=2Tu3bScwKKAC&pg=PT67&dq=The+children+now+love+luxury&hl=en&ei=t70XTITKFon9nAea34zNCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=book-thumbnail&resnum=5&ved=0CEAQ6wEwBA#v=onepage&q=The%20children%20now%20love%20luxury&f=false

Re:Race Drivin'

[tweak13]

People aren't talking backwards, you've just never been in a situation where it is not natural to steer into the skid. I'm guessing from your description you were doing something like turning at an intersection where speeds are low and so is the distance covered. Take a right turn from a stop sign for example. In that situation, the perception is more that your car has turned too far, and you're now pointed at the curb instead of down the street. So you naturally turn left to point yourself back down the street.

Now imagine a snowy rural highway with a 90 degree curve to the right. It's a fairly broad curve, and banked a bit so you can maintain 55 through it. You hit an icy patch and start to slide. Yes, your car will be pointed too far to the right, but since you were going 55 mph this time your rear wheels aren't just going to rotate around the front. Your vehicle is going to slide up into the opposite lane. As you see yourself moving into the wrong lane, the natural reaction is to steer to the right even more to get back into the right lane. It can be pretty damn hard to do the correct thing and steer left, especially if the shoulder is coming up at you quickly.

Re:Race Drivin'

[stewbacca]

Knowing your car's limit is the best thing anyone can do to become a better driver.

Re:Race Drivin'

[stewbacca]

If the back end of your car loses traction and wants to come around the front end, you can do a couple of things. Steering into the slide AND applying the throttle (for rear-wheel drive) will set the rear end and cause the tires to gain traction, which stops the slide. Force yourself to watch an entire NASCAR event, and you'll see this 100 times per race.

In any case, a lot of things about driving well are counter-intuitive, which explains why there are so many bad drivers. A small example would be the number of people in this thread who talk about how video games taught them to steer with the wheel better. But in real performance driving, you drive more with the throttle input and braking than you do with the steering wheel.