Study: Gamers Aren't Better Drivers Than Non-Gamers (And May Even Be Worse!)

Bad news for people who think they’re great drivers because they play games like Gran Turismo 5: you’re not. New research suggests that while playing games may improve reaction time, it also seems to help churn out aggressive drivers. It’s easy to be an aggressive driver in Gran Turismo where damage is minimal (if existent at all), but not when you’re driving down I-95.

This news comes to us by way of Continental Tyres, which says that gamers, sure, bring some useful skills to the table, “they need to apply some balance with a sensible assessment of risk.”

Risk? Gamers admitted to speeding more frequently than non-gamers, getting stopped by the police more frequently than non-gamers, and having crashed into stationary objects more frequently than non-gamers.

In other words, just because you’ve 100 percent’d Gran Turismo 5 doesn’t mean you’re the second coming of Alain Prost.

Maybe we need to wait for the fully automated cars Rey Kurzweil was just talking about on Opie & Anthony.