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7-year old driver gets video games taken away

ElysiumGX
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ElysiumGX polycounter lvl 18
On MSNBC this video is titled "No more video games for 7-year-old driver"
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/32233707#32235174

7-year old kid refuses to go to church, so he steals the family car, and takes it for a drive. I assume he was able to find the car keys. Where were the parents?

In a separate video from the same show, the Kid says he learned to drive from watching his parents.

In this video, the host cleverly implies video games the reason for the incident.

"I heard you like video games, driving video games, did that give you the idea?"

He continues nodding for that question.

Parents are throwing away his "driving" video games.

Score one mainstream media. Discuss.

I think perhaps the games saved his life. He was driving very well for his age. Maybe at church, they should teach children not to steal cars.
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  • AshleyTayles
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    AshleyTayles polycounter lvl 9
    Wow. Why the hell are they laughing!!! That's encouraging him to do it again! No offence, but this American crap makes Jeremy Kyle look like a saint!

    "We all make mistakes so we're going to move on". Yes. Because it was obviously a mistake. He just happened to steal the car by accident.
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  • Dusty
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    Dusty
    I think that kid would have nodded to any question they asked him, they were just feeding him what they wanted to hear. He seems like the same way I was when I was little. Just nod your head till the adults leave you alone so you can go play legos.
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  • Cojax
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    Cojax polycounter lvl 10
    He didn't learn to drive from the video game. 95% of that knowledge came from watching the parents drive. I do however believe if you play Forza on max simulation in a car similar to the one you drive in real life, it will make you a better driver. Typical media to blame an industry rather then the parents. The parents are 100% to blame.
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  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 19
    I'm a bad shot and a shitty driver case closed
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  • pangarang
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    pangarang polycounter lvl 11
    Yet another case of parents not wanting to take responsibility for their child.
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  • Firebert
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    Firebert polycounter lvl 15
    the way parents view disciplining their children nowadays simply baffles me... they had an interview with them first thing this morning on the Today Show that was different from this one... they said the punishment aside from no video games is that he is grounded for only 4 days...

    this wasn't a "mistake", this was an unsupervised child doing what he wanted to do

    i remember when i was a kid, the summer camp i was at was going to a skate rink. my parents gave me $20 to rent the skates and told me to bring back the change. i spent every bit of it eating candy and playing the simpsons arcade game... when i came home empty handed i was grounded for a month... this was just last month...
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  • Jeremy-S
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    Jeremy-S polycounter lvl 11
    HA! Grounding? That was phase two for my folks. . Phase one was kicking my ass!! THEN came the grounding. Like, here's your punishment, a beating, and here's a little something so you'll remember it, grounding.

    Whatever happened to kicking a kids ass when they deserve it?
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  • Firebert
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    Firebert polycounter lvl 15
    exactly... that's the purpose of my anecdote... this kid stole his parents car and all they're doing is grounding him... 7yrs old, sweet as can be, good kid.... cry me a river and carve a canoe... where's the righteous belt of discipline?

    now... i will say that if this happened to me, i wouldn't go on national television and tell the world i beat the shit of my son for joy riding in my car.... they could have slapped him silly for all i know... but to come out and say his punishment is no tv and staying in his room for only a few days is just ridiculous

    oh, and judging by how highly they adore him in the video... my guess is they'll collapse like a tower of cards after day 1
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  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    this is why automatics should be banned.
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  • [Deleted User]
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    [Deleted User]
    ... so if video games teach you how to drive, surely we can abolish that driver's ed nonsense, yes?

    Wait, no; THAT would be crazy. Let's just ban games
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  • kat
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    kat polycounter lvl 17
    So Jack was right all along.. games are murder simulators!! *points at kid driving as a result of playing car games where the only feedback on what you're doing is a joystick as proof....*
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  • Mark Dygert
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    Mark Dygert mod
    If he learned to drive from a video game he would have never gotten out of the drive way, as far as I know that model doesn't come equipped with a X button...

    "I learned it from watching you!"
    [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-Elr5K2Vuo[/ame]
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  • Sage
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    Sage polycounter lvl 19
    yeah it's those damn vidoe games! Let buy our kid games that are rated mature when he is still seven then we can sue the video game developers because they corrupted our youth! it's not that the parents are retarded and irresponsible, it's the game developers! The kid is a brat that's all.
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  • Vrav
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    Vrav polycounter lvl 11
    Reminds me of Star Trek.
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  • Zotter
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    Zotter
    Working at EB a while back when gta 4 came out (and especially after hot coffee was discovered) we had to ask everyone for ID and required that they be 18 or over, most parents were there buying the game and we had to warn about it's contents and they parent still bought it for them anyway. Now, I don't know if these parent's specifically cried out about the terror games were causing but I would think if it were such a concern in the first place parent's wouldn't be buying it for them in the first place.

    But then again this arguement is age-old and as generations become older and video games become more normalized it'll probably be more and more infrequent.
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  • BradMyers82
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    BradMyers82 interpolator
    Was he sitting on a phone book? I don't know how he could even reach the pedals and see over the dash.
    Yeah, that pisses me off when they feed him the lines. "it was video games right?"
    And I think that its possibly worse that they are making light of the situation.
    The kid shouldn't be on tv smiling, because he should be severely punished.
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  • Mongrelman
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    Mongrelman polycounter lvl 18
    AshleyTayles wrote: »
    No offence, but this American crap makes Jeremy Kyle look like a saint!


    NEVER....EVER....EEEVVVEEEERRRR! say something like that again. Even implying that he whose name shant be said is not the douchiest being in existence is an affront to...well.....pretty much everyone and everything.


    I haven't watched the video, does it say what game taught him to play games that he isn't supposed to play yet. I heard there is a game called "Parenting" that is supposed to do stop stuff like that, but I don't think it's available in most places, not tried it myself.
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  • brandoom
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    brandoom polycounter lvl 15
    Oh man. That was horrible to watch. You can see they want a confession out of the kid, both co-host try it get it out of him.. and then the camera zooms on his face. haha. And at the very end the lady co-host forces the issue that the kids video games will be taken away. i love news.
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  • hyrumark
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    hyrumark polycounter lvl 12
    That cop shoulda capped him in the leg after he ditched the car and started running away from him. Evading a police officer is a no-no.
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  • [Deleted User]
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    [Deleted User]
    hyrumark wrote: »
    That cop shoulda capped him in the leg after he ditched the car and started running away from him. Evading a police officer is a no-no.
    pff. Surely if GTA teaches us anything, it's that you always run from the cops.
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  • ElysiumGX
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    ElysiumGX polycounter lvl 18
    Should have given him the taser. Kid is a fugitive in training.

    I think I found the game that taught him how to drive.

    [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWf9oKzE-Zg[/ame]
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  • Ruz
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    Ruz polycount lvl 666
    actually i just installed a seven year old driver for my fx 5200
    hyrumark- perhaos he should have shot him
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  • ElysiumGX
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    ElysiumGX polycounter lvl 18
    FOX news finally get their slimey hands on the story:
    http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=14827435&ch=4226713&src=news

    Grand Theft Auto mentioned (because parents buy their 7-year old children Grand Theft Auto)

    Game Politics has a good run down.
    http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/08/01/did-7-year-old-learn-drive-video-games

    Kotaku does their recap in a language the internet masses can understand.
    http://kotaku.com/5327911/here-we-go-again-7+year+old-drives-car-gta-blamed

    I get the idea that perhaps most female news presenters only believe a small handful of games exists. One of them being Grand Theft Auto (number doesn't matter). One other being Wii Fit, obviously.
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  • Ruz
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    Ruz polycount lvl 666
    wow, if I had stolen my dads car aged seven he would have killed me bigtime, though the kid drove quite well TBH.
    Least he wasn't drunk
    hyrumark - he was a kid , why cap him lol? hardly a threat
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  • sama.van
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    sama.van polycounter lvl 17
    Shit I played this afternoon to Metal Slug 3 with my 6yo child .....
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  • Jeremy-S
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    Jeremy-S polycounter lvl 11
    Look out sama.van, if you played metal slug 3 with your kid, they might jump into a tank that appears for no reason, and is just sitting there empty, waiting for them. Then go on a killng spree, only killing thinly-veiled nazi soldiers, and rescuing POW's. ;)
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  • Lord McMutton
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    Lord McMutton polycounter lvl 17
    Didn't some kid steal a tank from a museum?
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  • spider2cool
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    spider2cool polycounter lvl 18
    As far as i know kids do imitate everything they see. but 95% of what my daughter imitates from me is from real life. I play video games like wow, and mario kart. For the most part what she learns during those games is how i act when i play them. (example: cheering when i when or sulking when i lose). I just bought her her first DS with a pet game. She loves it and is already showing simular behavior to me when i play. I doubt she will become an animal expert when she stops playing it though. not sure what to think of this story, kids are sponges, but this story is very annoying to watch because the news woman is leading the kid with questions. I know if my daughter does not exactly know the answer she says the first thing that pops in her mind and if she is lead like this kid she will react the same way by just nodding even though she has no clue what i am talking about.
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  • sama.van
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    sama.van polycounter lvl 17
    Jeremy-S wrote: »
    Look out sama.van, if you played metal slug 3 with your kid, they might jump into a tank that appears for no reason, and is just sitting there empty, waiting for them. Then go on a killng spree, only killing thinly-veiled nazi soldiers, and rescuing POW's. ;)
    Marshal Banana wrote:
    Didn't some kid steal a tank from a museum?

    haha if he does that he gonna lost Playmobil ^_^
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