Today's Pet Peeve

An article's headline caught my eye today, and the way it is phrased always irritates me. The headline reads: Video racing games may spur risky driving: study. Once and for all, inanimate objects can't do anything on their own. Without human interaction, they just sit there. The video game does not make you drive recklessly; poor decision-making on your part is to blame. The game doesn't hop into the passenger seat of your car and "spur" you on saying, "Faster, faster!"

This is the exact same misleading headline we see when it comes to gun violence. The typical headline reads, Man killed by assault rifle. So we're suppose to believe the gun sprung from the table and started shooting wildly into the room? I don't think so. Someone killed the man... and he used a gun to do it. Blame the man for his actions, not his tools.

So, what are we to make of this article? What's the purpose of it being printed? I quote Joerg Kubitzki of the Allianz Center for Technology, who conducted the study along with researchers at Munich's Ludwig-Maximilians University:

The question of age restrictions, legally or voluntary, should be discussed not only for "shooter" games but also for this kind of games, which have an impact on traffic safety.

Nice. More regulation. Just what we need: to be saved from ourselves.