Speeding teen driver - DS a passenger WWYD

[DeadMansBones]

My DS was out with friends last night, DS is 17 driver of the car is 18. I get a notification via life360 app that the car is driving at 102 mph and 67 risky incidents. The route driven was down back roads that are unlit and dangerous. WWYD?

Surely the police wouldn't be able to do anything if I can't prove which car it was that was speeding? People could just make malicious reports if not

I'm not saying that what his friend was doing isn't dangerous, but there's absolutely no way it's possible to get to 100 mph on unlit country roads - it's like when my running app thinks I've done some bits of incredible implausible speed when the GPS glitches. Especially in the countryside.

So I'd do some research on how reliable life360 is on these sorts of notifications. Still would have the conversations as above though

both me & my husband use life 360 OP and I will say, take the speed notifications with a pinch of salt. A few times it’s recorded me as going 100+ mph on motorways when that definitely hasn’t been the case. It also can’t seem to discern between train journeys and car either - it still shows my husband going 150 mph with the car emoji when he’s travelling by train. Just a thought

Devastation ahead for several families here.

Show him this as an example of the consequences,which could be a lifetime in a wheelchair if he survived a crash that could well happen.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-37727947.amp

If he's still at school, see if they can get someone to visit and do a safe driving session. Apparently there's one aimed at young men that is very hard hitting. Sounds like what he needs and he needs to think twice about getting in a car with a 'friend' who drives like this.

I would test the app accuracy driving myself on the same roads first before doing anything drastic because I've been in a car with someone who absolutely wasn't doing the speed recorded on that particular app and a quick Google suggests that experience is not unique.

Equally by the sound of it, those roads don't sound great for the speed limit either but that's a different conversation.

Blanket ban on travelling in that friend's car OP. I watched a close male relative die (aged 18) in hospital after a car accident in which he was the front seat passenger - and the only occupant who was wearing a seat belt at the time of the crash.

The others in the car were barely injured. His injuries were catastrophic and he died because his mate was driving too fast. I'd be making it my business to get in touch with the drivers parents.

I'm not sure how that can possibly be true tbh. More likely the app glitching. You cannot reach that speed on a single carriageway. You just can't. The slightest curve and you'd go off the road, you wouldn't be able to slow sufficiently for the turn either. Anything much over 80mph and the car becomes much harder to maneuver without losing control.

I've done that speed before, on a motorway and the wheel becomes very light. I was aware that the slightest turn would have to be taken widely. You're only just in control. You couldn't do it on an unlit country lane. It's physically impossible. You definitely couldn't do it without noticing the speed!

What do you mean? It's not illegal for a new driver to take a 17yo passenger. Do you just mean it's not a great idea?

There was a little girl we lived next door to for a number of years. Our families were friendly.

When she was a teen, she was a front passenger in her boyfriend's car and she ended up dead. Even though we hadn't spoken to the family for about 10 years as we'd moved, we went to her funeral.

I will never forget the haunted look on her parents faces.

20 years later, it turns out that my brother lives near her brother and, by chance, they got friendly. That lad (and his parents) are still massively affected by her death. It's awful.

My brother learnt to drive and was in his late teens/early 20's in his first car. He got it on finance and he'd had it 3 weeks before he was racing his friend down country lanes and he crashed it.

The police officer told me Dad that if he'd gone one more metre, he'd have hit a tree head on he'd be dead!

My Dad went on and on about it for the next 10 years. Every time my brother did anything wrong, it would lead back to how reckless he was in that car.

The punishment was that he had to continue paying off that car for 5 years as he only had third party insurance. He could only afford old bangers after that for 15 years.

Based on these experiences, no getting in a car with a driver under the age of 25 for my kids until they've left home and decide for themselves.

Unfortunately this doesn’t happen. Firstly it is very hard to estimate speed, especially if you are not an experienced driver, and second of all the people in the car would not have been thinking about speed, safety, road conditions etc they would have been listening to music, singing, talking, telling jokes, taking the pee out of each other, talking about girls, talking about bands, talking about college/ football/ sex/video games …………..

Which is why I hope the proposed legislation to limit passengers for young drivers actually happens. Other countries do it, even states in the US which are far more young drivers in cars oriented than the UK. A friend used to live in a very remote area where all the kids learned to drive as soon as they could. Their child’s teacher confided he was fed up with going to funerals for pupils and ex pupils.

So many young people do this. Death, spinal injury, brain injury, fractures, amputations, prison. Please stop them.

You need to take a hard line with this IMO.

Find teen car deaths stories.
Present the life360 data as evidence that cannot be argued with

Tell him he is never to go in the car with this friend again. If he wants, he can use you as a bad guy - "my mum banned me"

I’d be contacting the boys parents and telling your youngster if he ever got in the car with that boy again he would need to be rethinking a lot of his choices and i would be removing a lot of my good will favours if he did.

id also be telling him id be happy to do lifts myself.

In my city 2 teenage passengers were killed when a speeding driver of a similar age and not long passed his test crashed a powerful car they were travelling in. It came out in court that he had been previously caught speeding by a speed camera but his Dad decided to take the rap for the penalty points given he had only recently passed his test. No lesson learned there. Afterwards this lad continued to drive at excessive speeds and now 2 people are dead and the other passengers were hospitalised with injuries and families broken hearted.

find a way to notify DS’s friends parents.

I’d be unimpressed by DS’s faux naivety! Based on his response alone I’d say no lifts from friends.

I’d go hard on this. Print off newspaper articles of young drivers and their passengers who have been killed in the past 12 months. Details of coroner’s reports. Shock him with the details.

I know it sounds over dramatic but I would do it because similar worked with me. I was 19, thinking I was invincible. Experimenting with acid and MDMA. Until my parents sat me down and showed me what happened to Leah Betts. Never touched anything illegal since.

It’s advised that new drivers under the age of 21 should not carry passengers for the first 6 months. But it wasn’t made law.

Also, being the parent of boys, I know the dangers and agree with the further advice that teenaged boys do not get in cars with other teenaged boys.

I'm fairly laid back, but I'd draw a very hard line at my child doing something that is life-threatening or could lead to life-changing injuries.

In the relatively small town I grew up in during my teenage years, 2 separate incidents of teenage boys driving dangerously led to 4 deaths and 1 permanent mental and physical disablement. I still see that last man when I go home to visit my parents.

I would tell the parents. Morally, I would also tell the police, as this boy is a life-threatening danger to others.

You cant get excited about everything but This is a hard line / hill I'd die on.

I would be explaining that unfortunately you just cannot allow him to travel or get lifts with that friend ever again because you dont want him to die. And its non negotiable...

And I'd be closely overseeing that and ensuring it was adhered to via providing lifts myself (at 2am if needed) and paying for taxis.

I'd also go to the boys house and just knock / leave a note with my number and speak to the parents because if their son died or was injured I'd feel incredibly guilty I knew and said nothing.

My family is irish - pretty much everyone knows a close friend /friends sibling / cousin who died as a teen in a car crash. Its absolutely tragic.

I don’t know if they could do anything- if I called them it would be kind of to discuss this.

I have life 360 and it has never told me that I am speeding. It does occasionally say that my children are speeding when they are being driven by my ex partner (though nothing like the speeds you mention!). I have no doubt this is true in his case.

I would assume it is pretty much accurate and that if it is out, it’s not by much.

I wouldn’t try to test the app’s accuracy. (Would you try driving at 100mph?) That is not your job. His parents could do it if for some reason they doubted the accuracy of what they were hearing.

The problem is that lofe360 data isn’t data you can present as 100% accurate at all.

it had DD walking at 17mph yesterday which is just ridiculous!

whereas I suspect he was speeding and did have risky incidents the data not to be relied on

it’s why blackbox insurance for new drivers is so useful accurate information

Shocking and unacceptable. Contact the police first. You have a good excuse: you don’t know the driver’s parents. I know you could also ask your son to help you get the parents’ contact details, but once you’re in touch with them they might beg you not to contact the police. So I’d start with the police. This young person clearly is not ready to be a driver, and has not only endangered their life and your son’s, but also the life of everyone else on that road. Everyone else could mean you, me, all mums on mumsnet, all of our children … everyone!

Oh come on OP

With a little bit of effort and focus, you can find them

and if not by Monday, you ask school to pass on your details to the parents with a request for urgent contact

Get off mumsnet and start looking!

I doubt there is any explaining 67 risky incidents away. Two boys died locally last year and the other three had life changing injuries.

In my house this would be huge as would his lying. It’s one of the only real rules I have enforced but my boys didn’t go out with mates in cars unless they were more experienced drivers and driving for reasons and at times likely to promote safer choices. It very rarely happened.

I would be tempted to show him some videos of it going wrong and encourage him to grow up and take accountability for his own choices, if he can’t influence his friends.