Do racing sims make you a better driver?

[darkxshade]

Do you think your actual driving gets better as a result of playing driving games with a steering wheel? How much does experience gained in game translate over to real life?

 

[purbeast0]

lol

 

[Kabob]

I'm sure it can. Probably helps most if:

1) You're using a realistic cockpit/steering wheel/seat
2) The game has absoluty realistic physics (Forza and GT don't count)
3) You've got multi-screen setup for the various windows
3) You have force feedback

 

[RedRooster]

More asian ladies should play Forza 3.

 

[Terzo]

It probably makes you a worse driver. I'm not trying to figure out the best line to follow when making a turn, or downshifting while turning to keep my speed as high as possible or stuff like that. Mainly though, driving is not a competition.

 

[MJinZ]

Do you think your actual driving gets better as a result of playing driving games with a steering wheel? How much does experience gained in game translate over to real life?

Yes. See Gran Turismo Academy where people who win end up becoming real race car drivers and win professional racing contracts.

 

[darkxshade]

Yes. See Gran Turismo Academy where people who win end up becoming real race car drivers and win professional racing contracts.

This is what my thread is sorta based on... some people play the game and get a chance to race in a real tournaments. So if you play the game with the intent of actually learning to race instead of playing to play[translation: driving recklessly, anything to win], then would that actually help your driving in the real world? If you can learn to drive fast in a video game, wouldn't it does improve real world driving abilities at lower speeds?

 

[thilanliyan]

It helps somewhat I think...but you're missing a whole other dimension compared to real life so it's no substitute. (assuming you don't have a real simulator like something the F1 teams use).

 

[TrueBlueLS]

No

 

[Pia]

Of course it improves your driving. Doing well in an accurate racing sim requires fine control in positioning the car, doing everything smoothly, understanding how much friction is available to you in a given situation and how to leave a sufficient margin of safety, and concentration on the driving task. These are driving universals. You can also apply the control derived from (real or virtual) race driving practice to daily driving specific techniques, such as improving gas economy and maintaining proper safety distances for the public road.

 

[Gillbot]

no

 

[zinfamous]

highly doubtful.



...better in your own mind, maybe

 

[mmntech]

No. Besides, street driving and racing are two different animals.

 

[Tristicus]

No...probably made me worse since I want to speed now.

 

[Gibson486]

well...if my sim scores alot, then does that increase my chances in real life?

 

[BoberFett]

There's too much tactile information lost. The resistance of the steering wheel, the inertia, the feeling of traction or loss thereof. All the physical links between you and the road. I imagine the people who go from video games to real driving are people who would have been good drivers without playing games.

 

[gorcorps]

Absolutely... in the same way that playing guitar hero will make you as good as Slash in no time.

 

[Pia]

There's too much tactile information lost. The resistance of the steering wheel, the inertia, the feeling of traction or loss thereof. All the physical links between you and the road. I imagine the people who go from video games to real driving are people who would have been good drivers without playing games.

The question was, does success at racing sims improve your existing driving skill. And the answer is undoubtedly yes, since succeeding at the sims requires you to actively think about the act of driving, something the majority of car commuters do not really do.

I know I became a (slightly) better car driver through reading a how-to book about track racing, and also through learning to ride a motorcycle, and also through learning to drive a heavy truck, and also through commuting with a bicycle. All of these exposed some aspects of dealing with the car, interacting with the traffic flow etc that I wasn't previously aware of.

 

[darkswordsman17]

They do, just not in the way you think. It is proven to help hand-eye coordination and spatial awareness (processing movement and objects around you). Of course that doesn't matter if you're driving on the street like you do in the game, as you'd be driving like a jackass and the extra benefit games give you would be pretty easily nullified by a variety of factors. So it helps with motor skills and knowledge, but obviously pales in comparison to actual driving.

I would personally like to see the government develop (or pay someone to develop for them, maybe using say a video game engine) a simulator that can help people understand things like following distances. Most people (myself included) are not very good at judging distances. Knowing how many feet you should be allowing is meaningless without being able to reference it properly. I'd also like for them to have a simulation for emergency situations, such as those they'd find in unintended acceleration among others.

 

[Kabob]

It would depend on what your definition of a "better driver" is. I know that alot of racers play iRacing to help them learn the tracks and such, but will it make you a better street driver? No.

 

[Imaginer]

No unless the driving sim teaches common road courtesy and traffic laws instead of racing laps over and over again.

 

[blurredvision]

People will think I'm stupid for saying this, but I think it does. I played the shit out of Gran Turismo back when it first came out, around the time I was at driving age, and it taught me a lot about car physics and how to handle a car at certain speeds. I took and passed my driving test after only practicing for maybe a half hour at the most. I always attributed to my time in Gran Turismo on knowing how to handle a car.

Granted, a regular drivers license test isn't that grand of a method of testing driving skill, but I still stand by what I said .

 

[fbrdphreak]

An accurate and detailed racing sim can help you understand why and how a car handles the way it does, absolutely. Especially if you do your own suspension tuning. While you may not run only -1 degree front camber in the real world, seeing the effect that changes have can certainly be an educational experience, IF the game is worth its salt.

But actually improving skill? No. Skill is gained through experience. A racing sim is not experience. It is at best education, and at worst: false confidence.

If you want to gain real driving skill, start with a driving skills class. Not your high school driver's ed, but one where you learn how to control the car in emergency situations and the such. From there, a high performance driving event (HPDE), usually held at a large race track.

 

[fbrdphreak]

People will think I'm stupid for saying this, but I think it does. I played the shit out of Gran Turismo back when it first came out, around the time I was at driving age, and it taught me a lot about car physics and how to handle a car at certain speeds. I took and passed my driving test after only practicing for maybe a half hour at the most. I always attributed to my time in Gran Turismo on knowing how to handle a car.

Granted, a regular drivers license test isn't that grand of a method of testing driving skill, but I still stand by what I said .

And if you had tried to take the driver's ed vehicle to Laguna Seca, you wouldn't be here posting this.

 

[Via]

Sure it does.

I've been sim racing for a long time now, probably 1000s of hours. I can think of several occasions where my sim racing instincts kicked in and got me through tough spots.

Example - About 2 years ago I was driving (too fast, I admit) down an alley and a truck started backing out of a garage right in front of me. Most people would slam on their brakes; if I had I probably would have slid into the side of the truck.

But some instinct inside of me made me hit the gas, not the brakes, and I barely made past him without contact.

Never having raced in real life I attribute those kinds of instincts directly to sim racing.