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Home Driving games updates

New levels of insanity: gaming blamed for teens who suck at driving!

3:49 PM on 12.26.2006, Nex 27 comments

New levels of insanity: gaming blamed for teens who suck at driving! photo
     Driving games

The New Zealand Herald ran a story earlier about three of their teenagers who, like most teenagers, are (were) terrible drivers and managed to get themselves into a high speed police chase that ended in their deaths. That's all well and good, but then we have Maurice Williamson (the National Transport Spokesman) saying that video games are somehow at fault! Here's a quote:

"Three Auckland teenagers were killed when the vehicle they were in crashed off the Northwestern Motorway in Auckland during a high-speed police pursuit on Christmas Eve.

National's transport spokesman Maurice Williamson says today's young people think they are bullet-proof. He blames Playstations and X-boxes for making teens think they can drive stupidly and just push the reset button if anything goes wrong."

*cue sound of record skipping* 

Hold on just one second!

Have we really reached the point where we can blame literally anything on video games? Could I say that Quake 3 somehow retroactively caused the Holocaust, or that Katamari Damacy was responsible for that hurricane that hit Thailand? Sure, it's been scientifically proven that prolonged exposure to Halo raises the likelyhood that one will wear a polo shirt with a "popped" collar or that they would ask their "bros" for help doing a "keg stand", but until these kiwis show me some proof of their claims, the only thing I'm going to draw from this article is that they need to spend more time with Gran Turismo.


Next page: More Controversy stories




World Famous's Avatar
World Famous at 12/26/2006 15:57
Did you know video games sneak into homes and kill babies and puppies?
CrackerlySeagull's Avatar
CrackerlySeagull at 12/26/2006 15:59
Looks like Nex didn't get his Christmas wish.
Snaileb 's Avatar
Snaileb at 12/26/2006 16:03
Thats brutal. I was hoping videogames werent the awnser to youthinization, but what better way, right?
bhive01's Avatar
bhive01 at 12/26/2006 16:09
euthanasia?
Snaileb 's Avatar
Snaileb at 12/26/2006 16:14
yeah. that too. Scuse me while I go beat the crap out of a dictionary, and hug a math book. Stupid grammar.
Fronz's Avatar
Fronz at 12/26/2006 16:22
hahah my favorite POD song. "we are we areeee - the youthinaztionnnn"
Snaileb 's Avatar
Snaileb at 12/26/2006 16:24
lol thats awesome.. thats not what it says but from now on it does. Fuckin right, POD song is creepy. With the kids... singing about 'youthinazation'. I like pretend.
dark_inchworm's Avatar
dark_inchworm at 12/26/2006 17:58
I think you mean to cue the sound of a record scratching. :)

But yeah, this is, to put it simply, dumb.
Cruds's Avatar
Cruds at 12/26/2006 19:34
Hasn't this happened before? 2 kids in Canada who wrecked a car , they did blame it on video games cuz there was a copy of NFS in the car.
Dexter345's Avatar
Dexter345 at 12/26/2006 19:43
My dad always told me that I'm a better driver than my sister because I grew up playing video games. Little does he know that the real reason I'm a better driver than my sister is because she's a female and I'm not.
Ballistic90's Avatar
Ballistic90 at 12/26/2006 21:40
Yeah, whenever I get into a car I find it hard not to perform takedowns on cars with a red arrow floating above them. In case you don't know, that's ALL cars.
notforsale's Avatar
notforsale at 12/26/2006 23:03
Sheesh, Im as embaressed as an embaressed thing over this. The shame, it burns like Herpies. I apologize on behalf of the Numbnuts of New Zealand.
Samit Sarkar's Avatar
Samit Sarkar at 12/27/2006 04:48
Oh, sure, blame a crash on videogames that make youngsters feel invincible by living vicariously through the games...not movies like The Fast and the Furious or [insert Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick here]
Vigor's Avatar
Vigor at 12/27/2006 08:39
No true story i talked to leon the crackhead because he had info to setup big mike the rival dealer. So i had to take leon to the local crack house to get his fix. So he gave me the info, so i drove to my local hideout to stock up on molotov cocktails and AK clips. Because i used all of my molotov cocktails on the rampage boost where i killed 56 and got 187,453 Moneys. So i got my molotov cocktails and i had only 4:23 to get the mission done. Guess what happened? I crashed into the water and you cant swim out of the car when you crash so i revived within the nearest hospital thank god!
djnexus911's Avatar
djnexus911 at 12/27/2006 10:47
whats the world coming to sheesh... and that crash picture is insane no ones walking away from that.
Onorem's Avatar
Onorem at 12/27/2006 13:11
Don't blame Playstation. Don't blame The Fast and the Furious. Blame stupid people for their own stupidity. Vin Deisel had just as much to do with the crash as Need for Speed did.
ScrewdriverKing's Avatar
ScrewdriverKing at 12/27/2006 16:46
I always thought the POD song was "We are we are...the United Nations".

PS: I always drive better after playing some Forza.
Holyetheline's Avatar
Holyetheline at 12/29/2006 12:41
POD sux.
Ninjajuice66's Avatar
Ninjajuice66 at 01/07/2007 19:27
Apperantly these kids didn't play ENOUGH games becauce the was no RPG launcher found at the scene.
Ninjajuice66's Avatar
Ninjajuice66 at 01/07/2007 19:28
(I apoligize for the typos in my prev. post.)
Kyousuke Nanbu's Avatar
Kyousuke Nanbu at 01/09/2007 13:00
Teenagers will always do stupid crap when they're driving, the key is to keep it within the law.
Serpentish's Avatar
Serpentish at 01/15/2007 13:33
The only reason I have the uber driving skills I have now is because of all my rigorous practice playing zelda.
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