14 DAY TRIAL // Grand Theft Auto is a franchise that has been blamed for quite a lot of bad things. From teaching children that violence is fun or that shooting people on the street is rewarded to engaging in police chases just for the thrills, no aspect of the game has been left untouched by various anti-video game representatives, like Jack Thompson.
Now, it seems that another thing can be blamed on the famous sandbox game, one that can be really tough to classify as bad or good. It seems that a 6-year-old boy from Virginia, after missing the bus that usually took him to school, decided to put into practice all of those hours of driving around in the virtual cities of Grand Theft Auto or Monster Truck Jam, and took his family car on the highway in order to get to school.
Needless to say, things in real life aren't like in video games, and the boy crashed the sedan but luckily he only suffered mild injuries and was taken care of at the hospital. It seems that the boy took advantage of the fact that his mother was still asleep, and, in order not to be late for school, swiped the car keys and took off with the vehicle. According to the police, the young boy covered a lot of the 6-mile distance between his house and the school, but hit a utility pole just a mile before he could safely reach the school building.
“He was very intent on getting to school,” said Northumberland County Sheriff Chuck Wilkins. “When he got out of the car, he started walking to school. He did not want to miss breakfast and PE. This really is a story of miracles. The Lord was with him, along with everybody else on the highway.” Also, the police placed the child and his 4-year-old brother into protective custody. The two parents have been charged with child endangerment and are currently held in jail.
Although the child's attempt to get to school is quite righteous, his parents need to take more care of him, and not let him play a Mature-rated game like Grand Theft Auto if he is only 6 years old. Let's just hope that the parents received the right punishment in order to make them think twice about the ratings on the games they buy their children.