Games · Behind the Wheel

Behind the Wheel: free online first-person driving game

Take the wheel and drive from inside the car: the steering wheel turns in your hands, the speedometer climbs and the mirror shows who is behind you. A clifftop road, terraced vineyards, a misty ridge, rain with wipers and an avenue at night. Checkpoints against the clock, races against 5 rivals, free drive and a new route every day. Free, no account needed.

How to play

• The car accelerates by itself. On a phone, press the big left and right buttons to steer (or touch the left or right half of the screen) and the middle button to brake. On a computer, use the ← → arrow keys or Q and P to steer and the space bar to brake. The ↑ arrow or W also accelerates.
• Corners push the car outwards: steer into them and, if the bend is very tight, brake a little before it. Off the tarmac you lose speed. Traffic is slower than you: overtake on either side and check the mirror to see who is behind.
• In Checkpoints you start with about a minute. Each checkpoint at the end of a road gives you time for the next one, and the clocks on the road add 3 seconds. If time runs out, the car stops. Points: 1 per 10 metres, 10 per coin and, if you reach the end, 1000 more plus 20 for every second left.
• In a Race you start mid-grid, with three rivals ahead and two behind. Only podium finishes score: 1000 per level, plus 600 for 1st, 300 for 2nd and 100 for 3rd. The Route of the day joins 3 random roads and scores like Checkpoints.
• On the road you will find golden V coins, orange turbo pads (a few seconds of extra speed) and clocks. Collect at least 60% of the coins for an extra star at the end. At night the headlights come on by themselves, and so do the wipers in the rain.

Where this game comes from

The first arcade driving games, in the 1970s, already showed the road from the driver’s seat, with little more than roadside posts going by. In the 1980s the trick this game uses became popular: draw the road as horizontal slices, each narrower than the last up to the horizon, and shift them sideways for bends and up or down for hills. It looks 3D, but it is all drawn in two dimensions.

Much of what you see on the dashboard has a story. The windscreen wiper was patented in 1903 by Mary Anderson in the United States, after she watched a streetcar driver stop again and again to clear the glass by hand. The rear-view mirror became famous in 1911, at the first Indianapolis 500: Ray Harroun used a mirror instead of carrying a riding mechanic to look back for him, and he won.

In Portugal, traffic only switched to driving on the right on 1 June 1928, to match most of continental Europe. The roads in this game are made up but have a Portuguese flavour: clifftops by the sea, terraced vineyards, misty hills, cork oaks on the plain and avenues lit up at night.

Free game, no betting and no prizes. The roads, cars and drivers are made up. Your drive is saved on this device.