Simulators save lives (or, thank goodness for iRacing)

[roncollins]

Food for thought?

[John]

That is one terrifying experience. It makes me want to bust out the old Indianapolis 500: The Simulation disks and bone up on my left-hand turns. I don't recall women stepping in front of my racing car in that game, but it still won't hurt to be prepared. :)

[Rory]

Maybe your sim racing experience kicked into gear, which helped you with your decisions on how you wanted to handle your car.
But here's a bigger question. What video game help her with the decision to step out into traffic? Grand Theft Auto?

I sim race quit a bit with Rfactor 1 and it does get into your head. When I get done racing with some mods that are intense like F1 or Sprint Cars, I'm sweating like crazy.
And I'm not a big or over weight guy. You get so lost into cyber space I think your brain forgets about the real world for that moment.
Since Ron races sim he can prolly relate, but if you go real driving right after sim racing, your car and the road feel a lil different.
So Ron, I can see where sim racing might have played a part. At least at that moment.

If sim racing was in fact the reason you made your maneuver to miss that girl, in a way the cyber world was successful in blurring the line between virtual and reality.

"Do you think that's air your breathing now" Morpheus

[roncollins]

I definitely relate to the whole thing you describe about driving in realspace after sim racing. You feel everything in the car after that. I think part of being a good sim racer is taking the input from visual and audio directions and filling the the rest of the physical sensations related to g-forces and chassis movement. Also, at that moment you're racing--really racing--you're so dialed in that nothing else exists. I got that more in GPL than iRacing, really, but part of that is that I have a particular affinity for the Grand Prix cars of the 60s. To run a hog-like BRM "quickly" or to turn a magic lap at the Nürburgring are things that cannot be described, only felt.

As far as the woman, well, who can say what was in her mind. :)

[Leones]

I had a similar experience years ago when a car pulled right out in front of me. Simulation time definitely helped. It provided some level of experience that gave me the knowledge of how to manage the car and the instincts to do it quick. It definitely helps. No surprise that professional racers spend time in simulators.

Simulator time will probably get you to 70-80% of car capacity, not the full ten tenths of professional racers but that's enough for non racing driving generally.