Another Video Game Blamed In Car Crash
from the pitfall-never-got-anybody-in-trouble dept
At least Take-Two will be glad to see the finger's not being pointed at them, for once: Toronto police are alleging that two 18-year-olds were driven to take up a street race that ended up with the death of a cab driver by the car-racing game Need for Speed. The real culprit here is the drivers' stupidity -- but since a copy of the game was "found on the front seat" of one of their cars, that's getting the attention, even though the cops admit it's not "solely" to blame. Judging by the state of the cars, it's hard to imagine much of anything being found on the front seats, but in any case, the mere presence of the game is being blamed, before police even know if the guys ever played it. Since it was in the front seat, maybe the game was actually driving and this time could be blamed for the accident, but somehow that seems unlikely. Put the blame and the reponsibility where it belongs: on the idiots behind the wheels of the cars.
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Damn, guess I should forget about that square dance this weekend...
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... unless the article didn't mention the actual title of the game. Was it "Need for Speed Most Wanted"? "Need for Speed Underground 2"? "Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2"? "Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed"? Shoddy, shabby reporting.
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lololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololol olololol
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"...It's stupid to say that computer games have bad influence on childern. If Pac-Man had influenced children born in the 80's, today we'd have lots of kids running around in dark rooms eating pills, while listening to monotonous and dull electronic music..."
-Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc. 1989
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http://markpasc.org/weblog/2003/07/23/pacman_quote_solved
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I raelly loled when I read that.
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http://markpasc.org/weblog/2003/07/23/pacman_quote_solved>
God that was so funny
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“Look, in the proper perspective . . . if everyone imitated a videogame such as that, we’d have to ban cars,” he said.
But... it's not just videogame media that these few are imitating. What came first street racing, or movies about street racing or games about street racing? It's obvious that the street racing crowd existed before movies like the fast and the furious made it popular, and games like midnight club and need for speed played off the popularity more.
Some people are just going to be ... sensitive to such exposure. Especially when the parents give them a high end car with alot of power. (mercedes at 18?)
Here in washington there was an accident caused by street racing yesterday, that left one of the kids dead and the victims of the other cars not involved in racing injured.
So I think it's a couple of things:
1) the media is playing up the connection not the police.
2) there is a connection. But like the police officer said, it's only one piece to the puzzle. These kids were obsessed with speed, their parents let them play games constantly that are innapropriate for them, watch the fast and the furious, hang out with the wrong crowd. It's but one piece in the recipe for disaster.
If you are a parent you can prevent this behaviour, by promoting _safe_ racing behaviour. take your kid down to the track. Don't buy them a car that can hit 60 in under 5 seconds. (hell they shouldn't have a car that can hit 60 in under 10 seconds!)
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2) there is a connection. But like the police officer said, it's only one piece to the puzzle. These kids were obsessed with speed, their parents let them play games constantly that are innapropriate for them, watch the fast and the furious, hang out with the wrong crowd. It's but one piece in the recipe for disaster.
If you are a parent you can prevent this behaviour, by promoting _safe_ racing behaviour. take your kid down to the track. Don't buy them a car that can hit 60 in under 5 seconds. (hell they shouldn't have a car that can hit 60 in under 10 seconds!)"
You are absolutely right if this was slashdot I would have defintely slapped Insightful on this post. Gamers are too quick to blame parents when games do have a small fraction of blame in these types of accidents. Parents are also too quick to blame the games when they should have been supervising thier snot nosed brats(can you tell I don't like kids?). Anyways great post, I tip my hat to you!
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Could Pac-man be the source of the rave subculture?
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My point is, you will have more people street racing than hunting zombies, because of certain practicality issues. However, you cant go around blaming influences like video games for the stupid stuff people do. I personaly have more fun with mario cart that NFS and realy wish I had a turtle launcher mounted on my car.
From a completly serious stance though, if you must blame sombody blame the whole frigging media industry, and while we are at it lets blame them for the spread of sexualy transmitted disseases, aborted children and broken homes because of thier pushing the evolope of sexual revalution for the last 40 years. Ok, that went from serious to half sarcastic real quick, but you get the point...
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volition
Having the game in the car is an irrelevant fact. Choosing to street race and killing someone is hardly something an inanimate object could cause someone to do. Did the game swing their arms behind their backs and 'make' them drive?
so "Put the... reponsibility where it belongs: on the idiots behind the wheels of the cars."
Blame isn't necessary; it's 2006.
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DAMN YOU VIDEO GAMES YOU HAVE RUINED SOCIETY
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THANK YOU!
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One Question...
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Evidence
They found a REAL CAR. Maybe the kids were driving that? Worse: they also found a GAS PEDAL and a STEERING WHEEL (maybe not on the front seat, but pretty close to it). So it could be possible that there is a connection between the crash and the (improper) use of these devices...
No, serious, get real: they crashed because they were stupid.
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street racing
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Re: volition
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creatures of habit
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w/e your article is pointless
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I agree with the argument!
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i am highly offended b this article
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Racing games
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Racing games
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Don't know
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that is sutible
not things that are rated mature for kids
This case had me shocked! R.I.P cab driver
*sob*
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Re: w/e your article is pointless
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... wow
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