racing sims, if taken too seriously, could lead to driver carelessness on roads and would lead to accidents.
Have you actually met a serious simmer ?
Honestly, I don't think sims is a serious contributory factor to adolescent road recklessness anymore than adolescent themselves, by the very nature of their maturity (or lack of it) will have a tendency to be reckless, regardless of whether they are engaged in simming.
All you have to do is to give them the keys to a car and any wannabe will, at some point, try to show off with his friends. You don't need a computer sim to provoke his impulses.
With the so-called serious race-simmers, well...... I'm one, as are a lot of others worldwide, including some top tier real racers (people like Dale Earnhardt Jr., Rubens Barrichello etc).
A lot of reasons why we sim...and it does not necessarily have to do with being better on the real roads.
1. It's a heck of a lot of fun without the cost and consequences of real racing. Some of us average folks just want to have our little dream immersion at being M. Schumacher and leave the real deal to the real racing gladiators. You risk so much more in life, limb and money and we simmers salute your dedication to your craft. Just don't expect everyone of us to have the mental fortitude to engage in real racing. And we don't much want to. Sims are our little way of letting it all out without the consequences. At the other end of the spectrum, many real racers engage in simming because of the fun factor.
2. Real racers use sims as a preparatory tool. Not so much to teach them how to drive because they already know how to drive. Sometimes it is a big help when going to an unknown venue where you have no idea of the track layout. In some of the 'higher fidelity' sims, such as iRacing where each track is paintakingly recreated using laser scanning of the actual track, the replication is uncanny. One of our fellow simmers, and some of you here will know him as a real life airline pilot and regular MME racer....Bill Sherwood (
Bill Sherwoods Car Index page) used rFactor's rendition of the Nordschleife track to help him familiarize with the layout before he ran at the 24hr Nordscleife for the first time in 2007. You can see it all at this website.
3. Let's not forget, even at the so called 'top tier' of motorsports (F1), sims is as much of part of the infrastructure and an indispensable component of their program.
I don't believe sims are dangerous per se. Within its intended context it is educational and fun. Unfairly, it has often been used as a convenient scapegoat for real world behavior. Seriously, if folks have an unreasonable fear against sims promoting recklessness, they should also stop kids from playing all those violent computers games and watching all those movies that involve computer charcters getting shot, decapitated stabbed and whatnot.