Mario Kart Wii Used As a Driving Education Simulator

Playing too much Mario Kart and THEN getting in my actual car and driving causes me to have some pretty unsafe (and unrealistic) impulses.

This sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Anyway, I'm off to play Punch-Out!! so I can practice beating real people up who are five times my size.

The analog for when we were kids was POLE POSITION. Remember swerving around cars at breakneck speeds, occasionally running into a billboard and exploding in a shower of car parts? Yeah, that was awesome.

(The other big game was San Francisco Rush. Nothing quite like driving under a truck, hitting the hidden ramp, and jumping a skyscraper.)

Thankfully, video game driving doesn't really translate to the real world. Despite crazy driving habits in video games, controlling a moving ton of metal was a slightly more daunting experience the first few times out. I don't know what anyone else remembers, but I recall not wanting to shift into third gear. Sort of a "this is fast enough for the moment".

Eventually you get the hang of the beastie and are whipping it into parking spaces backwards before you know it. Try THAT in Mario Kart.

I guess its better than using BURNOUT for a driving simulator.

@VGP - I don't think the point is realism. The idea is to demonstrate that driving takes a great deal of concentration. Adding distractions to an intense video game demonstrates to the students the problem with using such distractions in a real vehicle.

@Objection_Blaster: I'd take that driving course. xD

They are giving out red shell lessons!? Sign me up!

Awesome! Now I can learn to drop banana peels on tailgaters and use bob-ombs to get out of 5:00 traffic! XD

@Ricardo91 - Wasn't that the premise of the Mario Bros. movie?

@Chicken Brutus: "beating real people up who are five times my size"... now there's some unsafe impulses to curb. :3

Despite the fact that I've gotten 2 tickets in my first 2 years of driving (one I probably could've gone to court about) I don't think video games really affect my driving. I mean, I play GTA, but when I go driving I don't weave around traffic and treat my car like I could just jack another.

...and remember: dont throw turtles at other drivers!

@Chicken Brutus

I remember picking up my ex-GF in her neighborhood, then tearing off at 60 MPH in this residential neighborhood and drifting the corner to the main drag.

She turn to me and says, "What the F%&$ is WRONG with you!?!"

"I'VE BEEN PLAYING MARIO KART!!!" I responded, like a madman.

@Chatham:
It's scary how easy it is to get in that frame of mind, isn't it?

This reminds me of that time I stayed up all night playing Ninja Turtles on the NES, then spent the next day eating pizza in the sewer.

...okay, that never happened. But it sure would have been horrible.

muahahahaha,dangerous but i still find this pretty cool

I agree with thewiirocks. They're not acctually learning to drive with this course guys.

@Chatham. That's why I never play Burnout before going out for a drive.

I remember when Mario Kart 64 came out and my wife, friend, and I played for about 4 hours staight. I was driving my friend home and remember thinking that I should slam into the car in front of me to make him spin out and lose a balloon. Good thing common sense kicked in well before I preformed the deed!

Talking on the cellphone while driving is one thing, but while playing Mario Kart? Blasphemy.

One of the weirdest articles I've read

I can only play Mario Kart with a nunchuck, so unless the decide to make cars with analog sticks instead of steering wheels, I won't be getting my license.

Can anyone tell me if excitebots is better then mario kart wii.

Right after that lesson, one of the kids drove home from school, and it was captured on video...

@Chicken Brutus

That would've ended in dysentary.

Errrrmmm, Mario Kart isn't on the Xbox360 and the driving games on the xbox are exclusional and hardcore anyway as well as generally poor value for money.....anyway, this whole Mario Kart simulation thing is a bit wierd. Its still more realistic than doing it using the fracking xbox360, hence the reason its been chosen

@ jp-30: Thank you. That made my day,

My friend actually became an awesome driver from Mario Kart Wii. He once escaped (Barely) a car crash and drove around a car that was doing 60 in a 35mph zone.

Yeah, MK Wii can do some wonders.

ROAD RAGE!!!

NEXT SEMESTER Learn the dangers of playing poker, beating a tambourine or throwing pies while driving as we explore driving simulation ExciteBots.

@Big A2. If that made your day yesterday, maybe the same guy interpreting a different classic video game will make your day today;

@jp-30. LOL, that certainly made my day!

MAN!!!!!! That second video was WAAAY Funnier. It's late at night over here and people are asleep. I'm trying to hold my laughter but I can't!!
And I'm watching this with the sound OFF!!!

@jp-30
Wow, that guy's crazy... he must be kicked out of every bar, store, golf course, and street in town by now.

Crap, the game itself is enough of a distraction, I'd be just plain impossible with all those cellphones and ****.

By the way, I almost had a heart attack when I read the title, and was afraid one of there so-called students was gonna crash through my walls trying to avoid a bananna peel in the road. Serious, if you want a simulation, you play Forza, if you want a shell up your ***, you play Mario Kart. You can't use one for the other.