Why??? Why??? Why??? Illegal Street Racing occur in Malaysia?

Wan Fadli Hazilan Wan Rosmidi (A122863)

Hello there… What’s up guys???

Meeting me again One-Fudley in this blog to discuss further about our interesting topic “Illegal Street Racing”. Almost every night, young drivers around the country enter into a dangerous game of cat and mouse with local law enforcement officials as they try to seek out locations to engage in “Illegal Street Racing” events. It happens in virtually every major city around the world. While their parents sleep, young men and women sometimes in their own cars, sometimes in the family car, sometimes by merely spectating, are prepared to risk life and limb in the pursuit of 'fun',. Yet despite the accidents, arrests, fines and the danger and risks associated with Illegal Street racing, this activity has been going on for over 50 years.

Previously we have gone into detail to define what is mean by “Illegal Street Racing”. For this session, let’s get into the cause of this activity. There are many causes which can be linked into this problem. As for now why don’t we just focus on one cause first which is “Racing Video Games”. Gamers who play racing video games usually tend to drive faster and drawn in “Illegal Street Racing” in real life.

From my opinion racing video games could be a contributing factor to people's bad driving habits such as competitive behaviour, recklessness and performing risky manoeuvres. According to the report of the research that have been made by Daily Tech, people who play these games and drive cars are more likely to drive recklessly and get into accidents than people who don't play racing games.

The abstract from the report states "[The authors] found that the frequency of playing racing games was positively associated with competitive driving, obtrusive driving, and car accidents; a negative association with cautious driving was observed."

By looking into this factor it can be says that since the racing video games are becoming more and more realistic, the games feel real and directly affect how gamers drive. Driving actions in these games often include competitive and reckless driving, speeding and crashing into other cars or pedestrians, or performing risky stunts with the vehicle. In short, most actions in racing games imply a very high risk of having an accident or severe crash in a highly realistic virtual road traffic environment.

There are research have been conducted by researchers at the Allianz Centre for Technology in Germany, this research included 198 men and women, from those who played racing games often to those who did not. People who did play racing games often reported to have engaged in more aggressive driving more frequently than those who did not. Interestingly, the researchers indicated that racing games had a direct effect on risk taking behaviour. The study showed that 68 men who played even one racing game took more risks in a driving simulator than those who played other types of games.

So, watch out for those who are the fans of racing video games, you might be involved in the “Illegal Street Racing” if you don’t know how to differentiate between the cyber realm and real life.

Whoa! It’s getting hot in here… I think that’s all for now… We meet again in the next discussion with new question about this topic… Bye…Bye…