In a virtualized world there's no consequences. It sounds counter-intuitive but I think that would be worse off because something in the virtualized environment might give you false confidence in the real world and that has serious implications for not just yourself but others.

When you're first learning to drive, think about how cautious you were when you put your car out of park for the first time. Chances are you barely touched the gas and inched forward while you discovered how much pressure it takes to accelerate or stop. You probably treated it like you were stepping foot on an alien world for the first time. A mode in your brain flipped that said "we're not screwing around here, this is actually happening".

I think simulators work for specialized things like flying because the stakes are high for tiny mistakes. If you flip the wrong switch or do something slightly wrong you might not only die but you'll also destroy potentially months or years of research and tens of millions of dollars.

Driving a car on the regular road has a different type of stakes. You can kill yourself and hundreds of others just by driving a few hundred feet in some places but the act of driving itself is much more forgiving for tiny mistakes.