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This is going to sound a little nuts but I am willing to stand by my point and would encourage others to try this as well...
I have never had anyone to teach me how to drive a car in my entire life, other than when Iw as 16 of course. But I mean really, drive a car. So where did I learn? A video game. A damn video game taught me how to drive a car and has saved me from getting into multiple car accidents.
I played Forza and I played the hell out of it. Changing from FWD to RWD to AWD cars. It is a "simulation" racing game. In creating it, the goal of the team was to make it as close to real life as possible.
A little example....
Two years ago I was driving home late at night. I had about a 3 hour drive. I was driving down the back roads so no street lamps, no cars, just endless rows of corn. I looked down at my phone to change the song. I was looking down too long apparently because I drifted across the yellow line and actually on to the opposite gravel shoulder. My reaction was not a good one, I gunned it and turned to the wheel all the way to the right... My car goes into an uncontrolled slide. I had never been in this situation in real life before. I was probably going 70mph, sideways, in the middle of winter, in the pitch black, on a deserted road. Not a good situation to be in. I believe that video game could have saved my life that night. Because all of a sudden I was breaking and steering and accelerating and doing things and I had no idea why I was doing them. I remember looking at my hands while all this was happening and thinking, "WTF, why is this working? Where did this come from?"
After I got the car straightened out I drive to a convenience store to work over what had just happened in my head and to calm down. As I went through the steps I took I realized they lined up exactly to the the steps I took on my Xbox controller. The experience I had in Forza showed me what to do in that situation.
Now NOTHING is better than actually getting behind the wheel of your car and going for a run with it. But, if you don't have that opportunity there are some alternatives. A video game will never be as good as the real thing, but I am throughly convinced the knowledge I gained from one saved my life.
A video game probably won't help you much at all for DD. But for those spirited driving situations where you maybe drive the car a little to fast, if something goes wrong it could save you a few thousand dollars because you actually have some basis for how to steer a car that is nearly out of control.
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