Generally, you'd assume that parents like to look out for their children — you know, try to keep them away from sources of bad influence. Now, ratings do tend to go overboard with what kinds of things kids need to be "protected" from, but even we admit that the mind of an 11-year-old is very easily influenced. That's why, usually, you don't let 11-year-olds play things like GTA.
Another reason you might not want your 11-year-old playing GTA is because they might nick the family car while you're sleeping and get into a high-speed chase with the police on the highway. In traffic. Before you think that that's just an exaggerated hypothetical, it actually happened in Ontario yesterday evening.
The boy, who was not identified, admitted to being inspired by his night-time gaming session where he played GTA 5, we're guessing unsupervised. The parents were asleep at the time, which is how he presumably managed to take off in the car unnoticed.
Police were later notified of an erratic driver on the Ontario Highway 400 after 11 PM. Other drivers assumed it was a case of driving under the influence, as the vehicle was slaloming all over the highway, travelling at half of the speed limit. The officers who went to the scene did not expect to find a child instead of a drunk.
Drivers called it in thinking it was probably an impaired driver, because the vehicle was all over the highway -Sgt. Kerry Schmidt
First, a single squad car was sent, but upon attempting to pull the "erratic driver" over, the 11-year-old went from half of the speed limit to over 120 KM/h. A second police car was needed to finally get the runaway to pull over and stop after some distance rolled.
The vehicle was first… going under the speed limit – like about half the speed limit. As the officer tried to get out and talk to this driver, find out what was going on… the vehicle took off again.
Naturally, the kid decided that slamming the gas pedal was the appropriate reaction to police presence since it's the thing players would do in GTA 5, right? Well, other than shooting said police with various military grade weapons, of course. Luckily the child came to his senses soon enough and catastrophe was averted. He has since been returned to his parents.
