Lincolnshire Police Force have tested using GT Sport as a police driving training tool

In an effort to seek out new ways to help train police drivers, Lincolnshire Police Force have been using driving game GT Sport to help their drivers improve their skills in a safe environment. Through a partnership with PlayStation, officers set benchmark laps at Silverstone, took to GT Sport to practice the course, and then completed a second benchmark, comparing the two. 

After practicing, officers shaved off up to 5.7 seconds from their original lap time, collectively saving 14 seconds together. To practice, they played GT Sport with driving wheels normally and in VR, using the game to test the limits of their driving safely. 

This is all done with GT Academy, which is a yearly contest where players compete for the chance to train and race with the official Nissan racing team. Whether the Lincolnshire Police Force will continue this form of training into the future isn't confirmed, but Shaun West, Assistant Chief Constable for Lincolnshire Police Force, did praise it as an opportunity to add on to existing training methods.

"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.

“It’s important to emphasise that exploring other methods such as this is not in any way seeking to substitute the rigorous training we already have in place but is simply another way to potentially bolster those existing programmes that our officers undertake.”

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GT Sport is coming out for PS4 on October 18, later this week. It had a time-limited demo just a week ago, with over a million people taking part.