Motormouth: Racing games taught me how to drive as a teenager, but driving in real life was a different ball game
Video games mask the impact of your simulated driving actions, so you shouldn’t take your vehicular gameplay onto public roads.
The surge of sim-racing games since the 1990s has sparked a global phenomenon that’s still going strong after over 30 years. For parents back then, it meant dragging their child away from the television; now, it means dragging them away from their massive computer screens. Funny how little has changed.
With such a large market for creativity, it’s no surprise that racing games have spawned numerous genres. My formal introduction to motoring came with the Forza Horizon series on the Xbox 360. As a kid with limited access to online entertainment, this somewhat outdated game felt like heaven.
Heaven was driving the cars of my childhood dreams, using vehicles that nobody would allow a 12-year-old near, and there I was, modifying them beyond conventional reason, treating speed limits like bedtime curfews – who would want to follow that?
Years passed, and while I still struggle with keeping a regular sleep schedule, my old gaming console was replaced by a beefier computer setup. I continued to play modern racing games. What didn’t change was the thrill of playing the ‘hooligan’ – cutting through traffic or crashing into other cars in the game.
When I finally got my Class 3 driving licence, I was absolutely terrified. During the driving lessons, test, and even my first time behind the wheel, the whole experience felt surreal.
Sure, I was excited to finally drive on the road instead of from the safety of my room, but now that I wasn’t confined to the lanes of a simulation, how should I drive?
In racing games, my experience was mostly about racing, speeding, and overtaking – you know the drill. Sure, there were moments when I drove normally, just for leisure, but because that wasn’t my usual style in sim-racing, I found myself suddenly worrying about how to do that in real road traffic.
With the gear in drive, handbrake off, and lights on, off I went. First time on the highway, fearing I’d be blamed for road-hogging, I kept my pace around the speed limit.
That urge to go fast came back to me instantly – gaps in traffic I knew I could easily slip through, emptier roads tempting me to mash the throttle, other drivers sticking to the speed limit, blocking lanes, and eventually my own.
The mental imagery was so familiar – pass the two cars on the right, filter left, move to the middle, and zoom!
But it wasn’t going to happen. I didn’t know the car, the brakes, the turning capability, anything. All I knew were signalling, throttle, brake, clutch, steering wheel. But the little devil inside me, so used to those childhood acts of defiance in racing games, kept nagging me to ignore my better judgment.
Fortunately, after two hours, I parked the car back in the spot where I started. Miraculously, and surely with a sigh of relief, the car was still in one piece.
Turning to look at the car, I came to a realization about this real-life driving experience – at least I didn’t treat driving like a video game.
The 20-year-old columnist grew up and sped up on a diet of realistic racing games.
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