Be honest what's your reaction when you hear of a young person...

[EhatBow]

Killed doing something anti social/criminal?

A school aged teen died here last night. Well after midnight, on a motorbike.

He and his friends are part of a group who've been causing quite a disturbance late at night/early hours in residential streets for several weeks.

I always think there but for the grace.... I haven't always known what my DC are up to and you have to let them spread their wings and trust them at some point, although at that age they wouldn't have been out regularly after midnight.

My heart breaks for parents who made decisions they must now be regretting, but as you can imagine, the reaction locally has been "mixed".

A good friend of mine lost her 20yo only child a few years ago. He crashed his car driving far too fast. The response was venomous, but these are still someone's child 😥

My honest initial reaction… I tend towards wtf is wrong with these kids. Plenty of us had unbelievably bad childhoods and still managed to know right from wrong and not mess up our own lives.

my more nuanced reaction when I take away the emotion, i do understand that life is complicated and people, especially teens, make mistakes. That every day is a chance to do better and we should always give people that chance. That a teen lost out on the chance to do better is a tragedy.

Feck the poor, poor family and friends. It is just awful. Life can truly change in an instant. So much needless suffering. He could have been home in bed if things were marginally different.

It reminds me of what Stephen Fry said about not being able to contemplate a God in a world where stuff like kids having brain cancer happens. This would be similar for me. Stuff goes wrong in a split second and lives get ruined.

Would we think the same if it was a (young) driver who was killed after drink driving?

I think not. You make your choices...

This is a pretty chilling comment

My reaction is one of sympathy and compassion for his/her friends and family. A young teenager - and we have all been that age - isn't capable of critical thinking, of realising the consequences of daredevil behaviour. A lot of troubled teenagers have missed out on a foundation of solid parental love and support.

Whatever the person is like, it is a complete and utter tragedy and a waste of a life that could have been worthwhile, with the appropriate intervention.

You might not have sympathy for the driver, but for the family who lost a son?

I think in a way it might be even more dreadful, knowing the world is judging you and wondering where you went wrong as a parent.

Honestly..... my initial reaction is always "Thank goodness it was only themselves they killed and not an innocent bystander"
There is a rather large and gaudy roadside memorial near us to a lad who was killed in a car accident a few years back. It was proven that he was drug driving. Hit another car at 6 o clock in the evening - rush hour - and could have killed the family in the other car. Makes me angry every time i drive past it.

It's a tragedy for those to whom his loss is keenly felt but I can't personally muster up much sympathy for a 14 year old that was consistently making a nuisance of himself to the wider community.

Some people live to learn that their actions have consequences and some die in the process. Twas ever thus and you just have to hope that yours isn't one of the statistics. Good parenting can mitigate some of the risks but not all and bad parenting exacerbates them.

I think people don’t have the energy to feel sad about every death they hear about on the news, so they find excuses not to dwell on many of them. Such as, “he shouldn’t have been speeding”, or “oh, well, she was quite old”, or “I bet his illness was caused by his smoking/drinking/obesity”.

It’s terrible to think of these young people’s parents and I think of them more now I’m a parent myself.

A boy in my year at school died in his late twenties while on a “lad’s holiday” abroad. He got extremely drunk and fell from a balcony. I didn’t know him well, and didn’t hear of his death until a few years later, but I do feel a bit sad for him and his family.

I've done stupid things as a result of peer pressure. I've done stupid things as a result of trying to do the sensible thing. I'm a very mild and sensible person overall. My empathy is with the child and their families, it's such a waste of young life.

It is possible to think their actions were stupid and reckless but still feel sorry for them. Look at Corrie McKeague the 21 year old airman who died after a night out. Getting so drunk that you think climbing into a bin for a nap is a good idea is utterly stupid, but it's still an absolutely tragic loss of life.

Reading about the kids (teens) who lost their lives in the heatwave by jumping into/swimming in rivers and resevoirs without knowing or heeding warnings & dangers upsets me. There but for the grace of God and all that - if you don't know or if your young brain is too immature to make sensible decisions, paying with your life is a hell of a price to pay.

Two lads I went to school with are no longer here. They were boys who were painted as 'bad' and I really don't think they were. They just didn't manage to fit the mould and didn't have meaningful support to guide them through teenage years/young adulthood. One of them killed himself in jail and he was only there for a relatively low-scale crime; I think that tells us a lot about whether the life he had was much to live for. I just feel like it's an absolute tragedy.

Growing up in a rural area with not much to occupy young people, without parents engaging with their kids or paying for activities I can absolutely see how some ended up going down the wrong path. Equally, the ones who went out and found themselves jobs etc. despite not being set that good example, I have huge respect for.

Recently in my local town there seemed to be a spate of teenage boys on bikes doing wheelies into oncoming traffic. Probably one of these "challenges" we often hear about. AFAIA none of them.have been injured or killed.....yet...but the general consensus was that anyone stupid enough to do that deserves what they get, and any sympathy would be reserved for the poor unfortunate driver who flattened them

This, pretty much exactly. What a waste. A whole life gone.

We lost a young adult to cancer in our extended family, and it was devastating, and the devastation was widespread. When I read stories like this I'm just so grateful that my relative's parents can have the peace of knowing nothing more could have been done to save her. Accidents, reckless behaviour etc, the torment must be almost unbearable, the what ifs. Seeing the friends who were doing the same growing up and settling down. Awful.

Yes. A boy from my school got drunk aged 15 and took a car out and was killed. Stupid stupid decision but didn't deserve to lose his life over it. Everyone was very sad, he was a popular kid. Obviously it would have been even sadder if he'd hit somebody else, rather than a tree, but it wouldn't make his loss any less.

There are some cold hearted people on this thread.

Young men have an excess of testosterone at that age. Nature designed it so that young males would fight, establish pecking order. gain their own territory etc.
Young men haven't needed that since the dark ages but the testosterone hasn't gone away. Modern society allows few outlets for all that energy, aggression and strength.
Racing cars/motorbikes like idiots is one of the defaults. Sadly resultant deaths happen every year.

The only way to prevent those deaths is to provide alternative outlets - sport, National service, physical work etc, and sometimes even they don't work.

There is no need for venom, only understanding and sadness at the waste.

Most people have done something stupid especially when young and thankfully our lives didn’t end nor are we defined by it.

I feel sad. It’s unfair to judge someone’s worth on what they were like at 14.

This is either a very big coincidence or you live near me! I think you’ve changed a couple of details but it’s too similar in my eyes to be a different event.

I am in the Facebook groups where family are commenting and saying it’s impossible to know where your kids are every minute of the day and we all make mistakes. We don’t all make illegal mistakes and I am confident that my kids aren’t out causing that level of trouble on a daily basis.

Since the accident the friends of the boy are still illegally riding around on the roads being very close to killing people while not wearing helmets. They are also setting off fireworks at all hours in memory of their friend. I went to the running track and decided not to bother because they were up and down the hill doing wheelies while others were throwing fireworks, it was too unsafe for me to stay. Where are their parents? That isn’t kids being kids, that is kids breaking the law and parents having no control.

The parents may well have bought the bikes for the kids to use off road with good intentions, but they know they are breaking the law every time they leave the house on them because how would they be getting to the tracks?

My friend was running down the canal or river near the services and got knocked off her feet by one of them on the bike, they didn’t even stop to see if he was ok.

I would have hoped the kids would have learnt a very hard and tragic lesson but unfortunately they haven’t, but even more shockingly neither have their parents.

About a year ago there was a young guy killed when he crashed into a wall and pole near where I live, it was no surprise, the road runs between two villages and most locals were very aware of about 5 cars continuously being driven dangerously there, everytime we'd drive it we were nervous of either meeting one or being dangerously overtaken by them. There was four or five young men in the car and the young guy who died was due to get married later that day, he was about 20 years old. The prominent feeling locally was relief that no other car or pedestran was involved. There has been two further accidents on the same road involving the same group of young guys since, thankfully while there has been nasty injuries no one was killed, these accidents were also single vehicle incidents though they have knocked residents walls and fences, in one incident they abandoned the car and reported it stolen despite being seen and recognised immediately after the accident. Its hard to have sympathy for them.

Yes.

A friend of mine from school drove home drunk. She smashed her car into a tree and died on impact.

I felt incredibly sad for her. She made a stupid, stupid mistake and paid for it with her life. She didn't deserve to die - she had a bright future ahead of her, had just graduated university and was due to start her dream job.

Not everyone who does bad things is a bad person. In fact, most of them are good people who have made stupid, stupid decisions.

I do have the feeling too that I’m thankful they didn’t hurt or kill others.

It’s tragic,

teenagers/young people are brains are still forming and they are more likely to be risk takers. Especially boys, I thinks it’s linked to evolution as well - I think it’s something like 105 boys born to 100 girls - due to boys being a little more (sadly) likely to die.

I look at my own youth - and when groups dived off the pier - we told plenty of times not to do it but did they listen? I did but definitely was in the minority and same with driving. In the area we’ve recently lost two young boys 17 and 18 in separate car accidents neither was the driver in either accident. It’s shocked the local town & teenagers very sad about it - but do I think it will mean they all drive sensible probably not :(

The biggest thing I’ve spoke to my 19 yr old daughter about is drink driving - I’ve always told her to phone us and/or we’ve set her up with an Uber account linked to our payment card - so she never has a reason to ever get in a car if she feels uncomfortable or if they’ve been drinking.

Oh that's doubly sad then because our town doesn't have a running track or a river/canal. Very similar behaviour all round in the aftermath though.

I agree with you, op.

Too many hypocrites in this world who are prepared to judge others when they arrogantly see no problem with the dangerous mistakes they make and get away with.

Young people in the early 20s still have adolescent brains, they do not have the mental skills to make the same judgement calls as an older adult. For some people, this will end badly and its always tragic.

People make mistakes, I know I have. I feel sadness and sympathy for all involved. Especially when it was an accident and there was no cruelty or malice involved.
I can't help but feel a little Serves you right, when someone is injured while abusing animals though.

I'm sad for everyone involved.
We knew of a group of teens that were killed joyriding. One of the teens father was so cold and said his son got what he deserved. I don't know if it was a cover for his grief and just a way to cope, whether he was correct in his thinking or if he was just and arsehole but everyone I knew were horrified by his response and felt sadness at the tragedy.