Euro Truck Simulator is the Perfect Eco-Friendly Substitute To My Driving Itch

Let me start this blog post with this: I like driving. Sometimes, nothing beats the spontaneous, aimless cruise on the road during the weekend, while listening to my favourite songs on the car MP3 player. 

I know a few nearby roads where the atmosphere is very relaxed and traffic congestion rarely happen. I don’t like to drive fast, just a standard 90 km/h will suffice.

But of course, the reality is that driving isn’t exactly an environmentally-friendly activity. This year, I want to cut on my environmental pollution as much as possible, and unfortunately, that has to include reducing my driving time.

The standard combustion engines in cars aren’t exactly the most energy-efficient machines. Every engineer knows that the engine only uses 20-30 percent of the energy stored in the fuel to actually move the car; the rest goes to waste in the form of heat and sound energies. And the percentage in efficiency will decrease even more as the car gains more mileage.

Chemically speaking, the incomplete combustion of your engine also releases harmful by-products such as carbon monoxide.

Considering my car now has gone past the 15-year mark, it’s safe to say that my car is quite the pollution machine. Hence, I now keep my driving to a minimum: only for work commutes, trips to the skatepark, visiting family members and the occasional hangout with friends. No more aimless driving.

This puts me in a conundrum. I want to drive as a hobby, but at the same time I don’t want to cause more pollution to the air.

Fortunately, this is where Euro Truck Simulator 2 comes in.

As the name implies, ETS2 is basically a driving game where you drive a truck across Europe to deliver all kinds of cargo. If that sounds like the most basic and straightforward game ever, that’s because it is the most basic and straightforward game ever.

Put simply, you’re a trucker.

Why the hell would you want to drive a boring truck hauling cargo across Euro countries? At first, I agree with that notion. Nothing interesting actually happens when you’re driving. Plus you have to drive according to the respective countries’ traffic laws too, so you can’t exactly drive like in GTA and expect to deliver your cargo in one piece

But the more I play it, the more I get it: it’s kind of therapeutic. It’s pretty cool to drive steadily on the European highways and rural roads. It later becomes very similar to the experience of my casual driving in real life.

My experience is further improved once I decided to listen to podcasts when I’m trucking. Now it feels like I’m learning something new while delivering my virtual cargo.

The game definitely fills the itch to go out and drive. Instead of driving my car in real life, I can just turn on my PC, boot up ETS2 and play my podcast in the background. My carbon footprint will be reduced too.

For those of you who have not tried it yet, I highly recommend ETS2. If you want to get really serious, you can get a gaming steering wheel, pedals and gear shaft to really feel like you’re a legit trucker. As for me, I’m cool with my Xbox controller.