Four police officers from Lincolnshire Police have taken part in a driver training scheme, which saw them play the console game Gran Turismo to help improve their driving.
After doing a lap of the track at Silverstone, the officers took part in a virtual reality exercise, where issues such as oversteering, too much speed around corners and breaking too late were identified.
With GT Sport demonstrating the correct procedure to officers, they returned to the track, where the drivers were able to reduce their initial lap times.
Assistant Chief Constable Shaun West said: “Our officers met with experts at GT Academy at Silverstone to investigate whether the alternate route they offer to professional drivers – training players virtually using Gran Turismo and then transitioning them to real-world track driving – could offer Lincolnshire Police an alternate way of looking at how we develop and supplement our existing training methods.”
ACC West added: “There will never be a replacement for traditional training methods but we are always looking for innovative ways to supplement the learning of our officers and staff. If Gran Turismo can help to train world class racing drivers, then we were keen to explore whether it could offer anything to our officers and help expand the way we think about evolving and refreshing our training methods.”
Meanwhile, Laurence Wiltshire, Managing Director of GT Academy, said the training scheme has shown that ‘the skills learned via. Gran Turismo directly transfer from the virtual track on to there alone’.
“This is thanks to the incredibly accurate simulation of the tracks but more importantly the simulation of the cars, their physics and how they handle,” he said. “GT Sport is the best in the series history and, with the addition of VR mode, offers the most realistic driving simulation yet.
“It’s one thing to train racing drivers but the idea that a game could help officers respond to emergencies more efficiently is mind-blowing.”