Crash on A66 that killed two police officers and 5 others…

[bookworm1982]

Am I correct that the other victims were 5 lads travelling in one car the wrong way up the motorway? EXACTLY the same as the 5 Irish lads who died a few days ago travelling the wrong way up a motorway too? Surely not twice in a week? Is there some sort of mental social media thing going on, telling kids to drive up the wrong way? Like a dare? Just cannot believe it happened once, let alone twice. Just devastating.

Driving in the wrong side of the motorway is attempted murder

Pondlife confirmed. Quelle surprise

A66 where this happened is a 50 mph limit dual carriageway near homes and a supermarket. Just for anyone thinking its a motorway.

Awful. Poor police officers

Let’s face it, these kids dying has saved countless victims, as they will undoubtedly all have gone on to be career criminals. Feral kids, from Feral Familes, in Feral communities, for whom lawlessness and criminality is an acceptable lifestyle choice. I have no sympathy for parents who have been part of this, who promote this lifestyle, and who exercise no responsiblilty over their children.

Youths have always done daft things but its getting ridiculous now. Tiktok should be banned

Where I live there is a very long sloping road, with a level off for a short time half way down, then it carries on going down to a small roundabout at the bottom. So many times I see males on electric bikes, balaclavas on, no helmets riding so fast. It worries me so much if they were to come off, I don't want to see blood and injuries or someone kill themselves. My friend told me there's no helmets so the police won't chase them and that some of them are drug dealers.

I have to drive at 2:30am to the airport and back next week, this is worrying me now.

RIP to Matthew and Tom 💐

what do you mean? Pondlife?

The A66 has a bit of a reputation amongst travellers and criminals i m afraid.At various points and times it is used for illegal horse racing,car racing,buggy racing....etc often causing major disruption and dangers.Ask South Cleveland police where a lot of the major crime families live (not necessarily travellers,but often associated) who raid and thief their way across the North East of England and into lowland Scotland.I lived in the area,and almost got killed a few times in 'accidents' involving these kind.

The families of the teens are all over social media this morning saying they’re all darling angels and would never hurt a fly. And of course they’re doing balloon and lantern releases for them

Was going to say this. Not a motorway where the police would have had more chance to swerve. This part of the A66 is a pretty narrow dual carriageway which is difficult to drive at speed at the best of times. 50mph limit there. The police officers didn't stand a chance.

Not sure I want these lads better trained. They’ll have the same values, but more skill.

I think you're mistaking not understanding the risk to other people's lives with not caring one jot about others.

The people who behave like this consider anyone who is harmed by their actions as losers who deserved it because the perpetrators think themselves so much smarter, and more clever than all the losers who go to work and pay taxes so the murderous arseholes in these events can collect benefits.

I have no sympathy for them, their families or their like minded communities who foster this selfish and murderous behaviour.

My condolences to all those who knew and loved the two police officers.

Just seen a picture of them. No real surprise there. "He was a headache but our headache" was one of the tributes I have just read.

Are the boys part of the travelling community? Just going by the photos.

All of Ireland doesn't have that attitude. For anyone else reading this eugenicist bile: the Irish people I know have more respect for the dead and the bereaved than that. Police, Traveller, immigrant, criminal, whatever - one of the best things about Irish culture is its respect for the dead and the bereaved.

As for the community the driver and his mates were from, assuming it's travellers outsiders will provide all the opprobrium necessary (and more besides), as it always has done where travellers are concerned. Whatever internal debates this community is having about how behaviour like that should be seen and dealt with, you don't use a community event - like a funeral - to make a stand against or an example of one of your own, especially when you're under attack.

Not to this extent, I feel. Many of these young men spend their lives playing stupid video games where they’re the main character. They hone their avatars; they take risks in the game; they’re the star - and these games are addictive. The games become their lives and they almost become the game character.

Then, you have TikTok and similar as a continuation of the imaginary blockbuster movie they’re starring in. They emulate risk-taking behaviour they see in the games they play. Then they post these clips for Likes, which just build their egos and their false personas as stars of the show. They don’t think about dying and they don’t think about hurting others. It’s all a game, and in games everyone can get another Life.

This behaviour needs to be come down on like a ton of bricks. Should we ban TikTok? No, but we should hugely limit the kind of videos on it. We should also have police in schools more, showing the consequences of dangerous driving. Not just the deaths, but injuries, and testimonies from the injured and permanently disabled who regret their utter stupidity.

RIP to the two police officers.

Oh aye all the usual shit. "He lit up a room when he walked in"
"He does his Nans shopping every week"

Glorifying dead criminals because they are young is not respectful. Respectful does not look like that.

Burying them according to your community's customs is respectful though.

The problem is, @Puffinsandcoffee , there isn’t ever enough ‘opprobrium’ for the traveller community. Dog fights, lamping, illegal horse racing, children kept out of school, and now seemingly involved in mass theft of cars with these horrific results.
Why are they so untouchable?
And you’re wrong, attitudes are not as you describe in Ireland. People are sick of it.

I think there’s always been a thuggish underclass, that hopefully most members grew out of with age and sense, but social media helps more young people coalesce around these awful activities nowadays.

It’s also extremely more visible to wider society with the teenage balaclava mobs all over the roads on ebikes.

I felt really morally conflicted recently due to a story in our local press where a man got sentenced to life in prison for running down and killing a teenager who had apparently just robbed his young son at machete point. This man ran his car into the mugger who was escaping on the stolen bike. I don’t like it that I had sympathy for an adult who had killed a child, but for the first time, but there it was.

The obligatory tracksuit and gun fingers pose appeared along with the statements about him being such a good boy and I can’t help feeling some incredulity about the lack of serious conversation that needs to be had about the sort of behaviour that leads to these tragedies.

See, I don't blame a whole community for the actions of individuals or groups within it. I'd call that being a racist. But I get the impression we wouldn't agree on that, or much else.

And I'm not wrong about attitudes in Ireland. I know Ireland has plenty of what I'd call racists in it. I just said, not all of Ireland is like that. And I'm definitely not wrong about that: I could name at least three people in Ireland who aren't racist.

I'm as disgusted as anyone else by the actions of the driver and whoever was encouraging him. I still think everyone should get treated with dignity in death (however that looks to the dead, their family, their community). And I'd no more blame all travellers for this than I'd blame all white Brits for Fred West or Bonnie Blue or any of the many, many other psychopaths that come from that ethnic group. I don't even think being white British makes you more likely to be a psychopath. Aren't I generous.

These tragedies are the end consequences of the “traveller community” being allowed to ride roughshod over the law, due to the fear of being called racist.

It starts with pitching up on land that doesn’t belong to you, breaking laws by being there in the first instance. Then fly tipping your waste, with no action agaist you. Ploughing up fields and putting hard standing down (normally on a bank holiday weekend so there is no-one to stop you), and illegally moving on - knowing the law will protect you from having to move on anyone soon. To making camps no- go areas for any authority.. because you scream Racism of anyone tries to check. Petty criminality therefore goes uninvestgated and unchecked, the kind if criminality that effects hundreds of people, and heaven forbid if you don’t want potential criminals in your premises .. again called racist.
So the authority’s have no power, and no respect, and the petty criminality grows, and become bigger .. and you end up with dead Police Officers, and serious injured citizens.

Add to that a complete disregard for Education.

If you have a whole community who are allowed to act with impunity, that the authorities are unable or unwilling to deal with .. you reap the consequences.

There’s a different between treating someone with respect and treating them like a superstar hero.

I saw on x the funeral of one of the boys from the other crash , my goodbess even for x the comments were seething ,asking where the police where and tax investigators etc.
Said they were showing disrespect to the family who died and so on.