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?

@DeadMansBones Police cannot do anything as they have no evidence. However they might find the manpower to speak to the owner of the car if your DS gives the name, car make and registration. He won’t though because your DS presumably is ok with a risky life and an irresponsible friend. He’s not going to stop this behaviour by being asked nicely. He’s in with the young idiots who get behind a wheel and think they can do what they want. Your DS has lied to you, hasn’t he? Slippery slope.

As for 100 mp on back roads! Is that possible? That’s fast for a motorway. I’d say that’s not the accurate speed but it is still risky behaviour to them and other road users. What you can do is another matter when DS is a lying idiot!

OP please find them and tell them! In one of the very tragic stories linked here it says that a mother threatened to take her son’s car away because of dangerous driving. She didn’t: and he killed two children, left 2 others paralysed; and was paralysed himself.

The boy’s parents really need to know about this.

I'd first verify the accuracy of the speed readings. A mobile phone in someone's pocket can't be that accurate.

When young inexperienced teen drivers have serious accidents it is often the passengers who are killed or very seriously injured. Your DS is lying, there is no way he could have been unaware of those speeds. Tell him you want him to stay alive and fit and well (not in a wheelchair for example) and are banning him from being a passenger in his friends' cars. Show him examples of the outcomes of horrific teen driver crashes to make the point clear. There are loads if you google.

You must talk to your son! My son had a friend who was like this and after one lift refused to go in the car with him again. Not long after his car rolled over due to him speeding, luckily his stupid friend was unhurt but confirmed to my son he made the right decision.

I've known two young people of this sort of age who have been killed in accidents involving reckless driving when in a car filled with friends of the same age. Please get it through to your son that he won't ever drive with this person again and he will always refuse lifts from people who have been drinking.

We refused to allow dd into her mostly sensible boyfriend’s car at night for nearly 12 months. Or any of her friends, really. We just continued to pick her up if she didn’t drive herself somewhere. She wasn’t happy but her DGF was a panel beater. We have seen the cars afterwards.

Show him this

"Young male car drivers aged 17 to 24 are 4 times as likely to be killed or seriously injured compared with all car drivers aged 25 or over."

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-older-and-younger-driver-factsheets-2023/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-younger-driver-factsheet-2023

Why aren't you informing the police?

Your son could have been killed by this person.

I had to have a word with my daughter as one of her friends was over 100mph on the motorway. Made it very clear how I felt and put my boundaries out in the open that I’d not hesitate to tell his parents or the police: it’s not happened again as far as I know. The lad actually wrote a car off not long after and it scared him enough to slow him down

Because I have no actual proof! For all I know DS could give me a completely different friends name and details, it also seems like the data from the app isn't always accurate either, though I don't doubt that the driving was dangerous

This. My dd is still a learner driver, but she is sometimes a passenger with friends. I have absolutely drilled into her the risks of distracting the driver, never getting in a car if the person driving has had even one drink, not getting too giddy or excited in a car with other girls so that they all get a bit hyper etc. in Sweden you can’t take a car full of other teens for a drive, you have to have an older person with you in the car for some time after passing your test. Cars with young drivers and passengers have a higher rate of crashes, anecdotally this happens more with boys than girls, I don’t know if this is a statistic or not but I suspect so.
The boy driving could kill a car full of teenagers, or crash into another car and kill more people. Absolutely tell his parents, I would want to know if this was my son. Possibly also the police , he doesn’t need to know it came from you, he needs a massive wake up call before his life is ruined or over, and the lives of others ditto.

Not saying this is the case,but life 360 can glitch at times,the other day my life 360 told me my friend was driving at 90 miles p/h over fields,which she very much wasn't,she was driving her usual route to work. So glitches can happen.

I've looked at the journeys a bit closer, going one way top speed recorded was 102 mph on the way back it was 99mph. Parts of the journey were on a dual carriageway then onto the back roads. Do you get much more info for paying for the driving insights subscription?

Also looking at other journeys I've made and been a passenger on all look quite accurate in terms of speed

I told my DS he was NOT allowed to travel in his friends cars. He did it again, caught him out and was grounded until he agreed to not do it again.

Lots of discussion about his safety and the risks, including examples, combined with how much I love him.

It was one of my biggest fears for his safety.

I'm already considered the most strict controlling mother for other issues recently so I'm trying to pick my battles here, especially if the app is not entirely accurate

Please have a conversation with the drivers parents.
Not to grass your son up, but to hopefully prevent a fatality!
Keep the notifications as evidence, send them to the drivers parents, and no way should your son be in car with them again. It’s just not worth it.

Yep, contact the police. What if someone was on a late night dog walk on those lanes, or they met a motorbike coming the other way? Instant death. Can you live with that on your conscience?
The driver needs the shock of legal action, and punishment, to ensure they, and your son when he gets his license, never ever do this again.
This is bloody serious, OP. Do the right thing before someone - possibly your son - gets killed.

I would also contact your DS’s school. I work with schools and the safeguarding curriculum and wider curriculum offer can be adapted to meet current identified risks. (visiting police/fire officers or charities etc with key messages)

FFS stop being a wet lettuce. This is serious.

There's a car load of teenage boys killed every year somewhere.
Mine are adults now but that was a nerve wracking phase. We live in the sticks so all the kids learn to drive at 17.

I never let mine take passengers for the first 6 months or at night and I never let them have lifts from new drivers. This meant lots of lifts as we have no public transport.

Just two incidents that I knew of.
DS2 was in a car driven by a friend who had been driving a year, was sober and careful. But they'd been to a club and the girl in the front seat was so drunk she thought it funny to grab the wheel. No-one was hurt.
One of DS1's friends, a week after passing his test, wrote off his new car by missing a bend on a country lane and going off the road into a field. Miraculously no-one was killed and because it was 3am the police were never aware because the driver's parents recovered the car and didn't report it.

Honesty… I’ve never said this before on here… I would be going absolutely mental, that was one of my worst fears … I know you can’t stop him from being a passenger, (can you? If you can I would) in that car but ii’d do everything humanly possible that I could think of anyway. I’d do anythng to prevent that.

We use life360. DH and I both drive fast powerful cars and I’d say the speed estimations are usually on the conservative side😳

OP, I’d be doing all I could not to let my DS get in a car with this friend again!
How is the lad insured on a car capable of getting to those speeds though - we’ve bought our teens 1.2L cars as any bigger engine was literally uninsurable.

I’d call the police on the emergency number if I had that knowledge. It’s not to demonise the driver or even judge. At that age they all have the arrogance of youth and never think ‘it’ will happen to them. But it does. Too many incidents near me that have ended in grisly circumstances and friends lost sons and daughters. I’d rather not turn a blind eye it’s just not bloody worth it.

I'm another one saying that you should tell parents and possible the police.

I can think of two serious crashes in my local area within the past year or so, caused by young men driving recklessly. A total of five dead and one permanently disabled.