AIBU to be terrified of early morning driving with all these crashes?

[ChefsKisser]

We have an early flight in a few days and I’m petrified of brainwashed teens driving the wrong way down a motorway and killing us all. I know it’s unlikely but what the hell is going on in the world? Why does this have to even cross my mind?!

I am not being flippant, but if you have an early flight 99.9% of teenagers will be in bed.

Just wondering whether the number of these that have caught attention because they have caused serious accidents is a tip of the iceberg sort of thing.

I gather it is some sort of Tik Tok craze. Maybe people are mostly doing it in the middle of the night or early in the morning and getting away with it. Then a few unfortunate cases end in the reported fatal collisions.

Statistics mean nothing when people deliberately increase the danger on the roads, though.

Indeed. A lot of them aren't even yet old enough to drive anyway - doesn't bother them in the slightest.

But does that statistic cover ALL ordinary drivers and relate largely to accidents and careless driving? How does it compare with the number of criminals who decide to go out death driving and succeed in causing death or serious injuries?

True... but I'd rather take my chances with a careless or distracted person than a criminal who has actively chosen to go death driving.

Yabu because crashes this serious are pretty rare which is why they’ve made the news.

I think there have been several cases of elderly drivers managing to end up travelling the wrong way down motorways.....

Elderly driver stopped by police after going wrong way round M25 | Watford Observer

Criminal driving has always been a thing and this craze, if that's what it is, is still a tiny minority of journeys whether its one in 100 000 or 5 in 100 000. Tragedies like this make the news because they are relatively rare.

If you go back to the 1990s, car theft and joy riding was rife and sometimes it seemed like a car full of them had died in a crash, sometimes taking innocent victims with them, on a weekly basis. It doesn't happen so much these days because anti theft technology has vastly improved from the days when a scrote with a screwdriver could break in and drive away in about 20 seconds. People had to put massive locking devices on their steering wheels (krooklocks) to try and prevent this.

Even in their own cars, some young men have always done this sort of thing, which is why their insurance was so expensive until it became illegal to charge them more, even though women almost never present the same risk.

The worst case scenario to the insurer would be that a car full of his mates would survive a serious crash and they'd have to pay out for injury compensation and decades of loss of earnings and care needs, which would run into millions.

Something needs to be done about this "craze", that is for sure.

You're more likely to be killed falling asleep driving early in the morning. Or another driver doing so.

But you wouldn't normally avoid driving at that time despite that bigger risk being there.

Because it's still very, very unlikely.

And you being killed by someone driving the wrong way on the motorway is even more unlikely.

No different from the frequent old people with dementia who do this… just doesn’t get reported.

Asked my 19yr old dd who's into the car scene and on tik tok.
She says there's no craze it's just knobs who think they can drive cars fast.

Really, no different?! I'm generalising here, but elderly drivers tend to drive more slowly - and even if they do find their way on to the wrong side of the road, they will panic if they realise and try to steer out of trouble if at all possible - rather than actually seeking trouble.

Also, am I the only one wondering how people end up on the wrong side, if not deliberate? I know it happens, but it's actually really difficult to manage to get on to a motorway in the wrong direction - and wouldn't it all just seem so massively unintuitive and extremely weird at every single stage? It feels strange enough when driving on the continent, even when you are obviously on the (for those countries) correct side of the road.

Just a few weeks ago, PSNI reported 'carnage" on our roads: "The figure is a sharp increase on last year, when up until the same date 27 people had lost their lives on the roads. During the same period in 2024, there were 35 fatalities."

We have a dual carriageway near us where people drive on the wrong side of the road at least a few times a year. It isn't like these deliberate cases, it's poor driving mixed with poor road layout. I tend to drive in the left-hand lane, on the basis that those driving the wrong way will be in "their left-hand lane", so will be coming towards me on the right. I'd start with that approach.

Stupid drivers are a hazard at night. Drink, drugs , tiredness, and just plain recklessness.

However it is still statistically unlikely.

There’s a single - admittedly devastating - example of this, but this is your main concern, when there are far more “conventional” car accidents every single day. Why aren’t you worried about those?

There has also been an increase in traffic on the roads since 2024.

The stats collated are for Great Britain that I was referring to as the OP was travelling on mainland.
I don’t know those for Ireland.

They should put flaps on the roads that fold down when cars pass over them the right way but remain rigid when cars go over them the wrong way.