How can reckless teenage driving be prevented?

In a similar way to the restrictions on HGV's, compulsory 66 MPH speed limiters on all cars, vans and motor bikes not owned by the emergency services. Yes it will piss a lot of people off, mainly the ones who can't keep to the limit.

Car, bike, van Insurance is high due to accident statistics

Under 25s - Think they will live forever
Over 80s - Need more medical checks, complacency, loss of independance

Unless we live in a world of drverless automatic machines. There is no one solution.

I used to drive lots more miles

I have seen on motorways;
Cars stopped dead in the middle lane, other cars swerving at 70 mph
Deer
Swans
Vehicle fires
People walking
Zero visibility due to different types of bad weather
Road closures
Cyclists
Spilled loads
Unsecure loads

The variables are too many

You can make as many laws, put in so many restrictions, black boxes in cars whatever . All it does is penalise normal folk behaving in a normal fashion.
arseholes who steal cars, bikes and drive like they are invincible won’t and don’t give a shit about laws and speed limits.

Sick fuckers

i also read it was neat to the site of the crash too.

Unfortunately one of them did reproduce and has a 1 year old child who he fathered at 16 (his mum posted on Facebook how proud she was of her son for becoming a teen dad...). The teenage mum of the child has been very vocal on Facebook. In February she made a barely comprehensible Facebook post moaning that the baby hadn't seen his dad since he was a newborn and was slating the dad. Then more recently she made a post joking about how her toddler (who wasn't even 18 months old at the time) won't stop swearing. Of course now the lad is dead she's going on about how much she is going to miss him. The child doesn't stand a chance

It's got me thinking about politics really. I think this is where socialist policies end up.

People who are completely unwilling to take the consequences of their own choices and their own actions. Everything is always someone else's responsibility/fault. Generations of it.

According to one article there’s a post on SM “those you knew use knew use …..” then something about how wonderful they were with hearts of gold (paraphrased)

But then again weren’t the Kay twins described as having hearts of gold and being mummies boys?!

No doubt the balloon release will turn into a big piss-up afterwards in the local pub

At any rate, it’s Darwinism in action.

Non- survival of the irretrievably dangerous and stupid, before they have had a chance - we hope - to reproduce.

It’s just appalling that they’ve taken useful, thoroughly deserving lives with them.

Apparently balloon releases are being held for two of the joy riders today. Fucking balloon release 😡. Jesus wept.

Thankyou for answering. I do see what you mean.

Im just not sure how you do get over your child (even when they are an adult) killing someone in the way that’s been described here.

Im not sure staying would stop those emotions either.

it’s a really complex topic.

Yes I agree with you. Small villages can be like that though, especially when the victim was from a prominent family.

The driver's family was not a dysfunctional family. I went to school with his brother who was a nice and quiet kid.

Imagine ruining your family's life and that of another family because you wanted to show off.

No it's certainly not always, the cases, but there is a direct correlation between poor parenting and children "going off the rails".

A friend of my parents raised her two children in a nice home. Both children exceptionally bright. One discovered drugs and life went downhill from there, despite the best efforts from the parents, rehab etc... and he ended up dead. The sister ended up with a 1st class degree from Cambridge!

Hormones cause a lot of problems, but I do know a lot of parents just give up rather than keep trying different things. I've seen so much neglect as a teacher it really makes me wonder why some people have children.

I also taught 3 boys who were in a car crash that killed all but one in the car. They thought it would be funny to drive at high speeds whilst high on nitrous oxide. Of those three that I knew, two came from homes where I'd say parenting was limited and boundaries almost non existent.

Here we go. I did “Chatty Petey” query;

California: no passengers under 20 for the first 12 months (limited family exception). Studies found a 38% reduction in crashes involving 16-year-olds where a teen passenger was injured/killed.
North Carolina: maximum 1 passenger under 21; passenger-related crashes among 16-year-olds fell 32% after the restriction was introduced.
National evidence: no passengers → 21% fewer fatal crashes among 15–17-year-old drivers; allowing one passenger → about 7% fewer.

That’s so cruel.

Where I live there are no multi lane dual carriageways. Nothing that compares with driving on a motorway.
Slip roads, lane discipline, overtaking on a motorway, I know statistically motorways are safer but it's just not something that's included in learning to drive in many areas of the UK.
Edited to say that was in reply to @Moros my quote failed.

But we have to be careful with restrictions that are based on urban teenagers
You can see this on multiple MN threads. Those of us with DC living in rural areas are used to the fact that every child gets a driving license on their 17th birthday.

How does any of this stop joyriding?

Years ago my brother's friend was killed because he went in a car with another teenager who was a notorious reckless driver.

The parents of the driver had to move out of our village because people were shunning them completely.

Have only skimmed the thread but none of this is new. I was a new driver over 30 years ago and when I had my first car, joy riding was rife, you had to use a krooklock, otherwise they'd have your car away as soon as your back was turned. No social media egging people on then. The brother of an acquaintance was one of several boys who burned to death after a crash in a stolen car.

I don't know what the answer is but it was worse then because cars were easier to steal.

"If you bring them up properly they won't go down that road at all"

If only that were true.

There are well known and well established facts about adolescent brain development. It’s similar in most mammals from what has been observed. The very basic idea (to summarise lots of very complex neuroscience and behavioural science) is that in order to fly the nest (that’s safe and cosy) and procreate, we have to;

1. take the risk - it doesn’t make good survival sense to leave the safety of our parents and the nest - so biologically we are driven to take more risks at this age
2. start to identify with and fit in with our peers and be less influenced by our parents (reassuringly we do come back to our parents values - esp positive ones). Even mice drink more alcohol in the presence of peers!

So we know that the transition period between childhood and adulthood is a higher risk developmental stage. We have to accept that if we are to make the right policy and parenting choices.

All these suggestions about limiting the amount of passengers a 17 year old can have, mandatory black box, only insuring 1L cars etc is completely futile. Funnily enough there are restrictions against stealing cars and driving on the wrong side of the motorway, that didn't stop those shitheads.

I work as a complaints handler for a car insurance company that specialises in providing cover for young drivers. If they speed their policy gets cancelled. Very often we'll cancel policies because the black box has picked up the teen doing 50 in a 30 zone, or they've been caught racing etc. We'll then get an angry mum/dad calling up screaming at our staff and insisting that their little angel would "never speed" and that we're a "predatory company taking advantage of vulnerable young drivers". I'll take a minimum of 15 calls like that per day. Or if a teen has sped but it's not been egregious enough to get their policy cancelled, we'll still insure them but their renewal quote will be £1000 higher than previously, cue angry mum/dad calling to verbally abuse us.

It's fucking soul destroying.

Decent parenting is a good start, including not letting them get away with poor behaviour in the teen years. A few kids from good homes go off the rails but it’s pretty rare, problem teens generally come from dysfunctional families

What's so different about motorway driving compared to multi-lane dual carriageways? Other than that motorways are far safer?