Grand Theft Auto A Leading Cause Of Car Surfing

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Here's a study you don't often see linked to Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series.

A new clinical article on the neurological injuries of car surfing discusses the media's negative role in portraying this unsafe act and the effect it has on today's youth. The largest perpetrators listed are: MTV's Jackass television series, website Youtube, and the Grand Theft Auto video game series.

The report states car surfing incidents that resulted in fatalities peaked each year around the time a new Grand Theft Auto video game was released (98-04). Additionally, there was also a drop when a game in the series wasn't released. "During the years in which no new edition of Grand Theft Auto was released and Jackass was not aired, there was a coincident drop in car-surfing fatalities."

Additionally, the report stated that location plays a role, saying major cities mirrored in the game have an effect on where car surfing will most likely occur.

"We noticed that the same cities depicted in the Grand Theft Auto video games are located in 2 of the 3 states with the highest national car-surfing fatality rates standardized to population: California and Florida. Unique features of these states, such as their longer summers and greater number of days of sunshine, could be reasons for children and adolescents to spend more time outdoors and car surf," the report stated.

It should be pointed out that Grand Theft Auto IV is not listed in the report. This is probably due to the fact that players can no longer "car surf" in the game, or the data was collected and analyzed before its release. We contacted the author for clarification.

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