HAWTHORNE, N.J. — A gamer driving his family across the country has recently been revealed to have spent the entire trip staring at the GPS app on his vehicle’s display.
“I really was concerned at first, but goddamn if he didn’t drive better than I’ve ever seen,” said Aileen Clark, wife of Barry Clark, the gamer in question. “When I first noticed it I pleaded with him to keep his eyes on the road, and then he just asked me what I thought he was doing, and insisted that I trust him. He kept calling it a ‘mini-map’ as if there was some larger map somewhere. I gotta say though, we’ve never made such good time. He was passing cars even. How the hell does that work?”
Despite her initial skepticism, Aileen says Barry drove the entire first leg of the trip, 8 hours and 522 miles, flawlessly and in record time, all the while never once looking away from the digital navigation that was guiding him. While his wife was impressed, many motorists made their thoughts on the matter clear.
“I don’t like the idea of sharing our roads and major highways with gamers,” said Glenn Turner, a trucker that didn’t approve of Clark’s system of driving. “I mean, it’s bad enough I have to worry about self-driving cars, now we’re sharing the roads with kids that played GTAV for years before they ever touched a set of car keys? I’m so, so scared for the future.”
While many saw Clark’s ambitious approach to driving as a harbinger of dangerous times to come, he insisted it was a safe and effective methodology.
“Honestly, I get why it seems scary, but I’ve been gaming longer than I’ve been driving,” he said, addressing the fact that he will under no circumstances look away from the GPS display when the vehicle is in motion. “There’s so many distractions out there on the road, I’d rather just stare at the screen and pretend I’m playing one of the older Forza games or something, and focus on the good fundamentals of driving. It actually makes it really fun!”
As of press time, the trip’s timing had been derailed after Clark went on a tirade against the ‘pay-to-win’ vending machines he discovered at the highway rest area they’d stopped at.