How can reckless teenage driving be prevented?

[UncleColm]

We had that terrible crash recently in the UK which resulted in 7 deaths - RIP to the two Police Officers who were on duty.

In Ireland we had a very similar crash the previous week where five boys died - aged 15 to 17. All were wearing balaclavas at the time of the crash and were 'well known' to Guards. The family they crashed into were three sisters and a seven year old son of one of the sisters (on the way to the airport go to a family wedding) - they are all still in hospital and are very seriously injured.

The previous week, in Ireland, a car carrying eight teenage boys aged from as young as 13 crashed into a car being driven in the correct direction by one young man who is now seriously injured.

The boys seem to be from a mix of poor areas and Travellers. In death they are being celebrated by their families but where were these families when they were alive? Who lets their teenage boy out all night? And let's them produce tiktoks of their 'exploits'? Parental supervision is clearly not in place.

How can this reckless driving behaviour be stopped?

In Ireland there is a huge shortage of jail spaces and places to detain a child under 18. These kids couldn't care less if the Guards catch them - sure what's another Juvenile Caution to them? One of the boys who died was supposed to stay in his own County but had ignored it. They have no fear of the Guards or the law.

I work in a school and there is a huge amount of help available to Traveller children in particular but they still tend to not engage with any after school activities, don't do homework, don't go on school trips, leave school early, high absence rate, etc.

I read recently that, in Ireland, 50% of Travellers don't live beyond 39. In 2026 this a shocking statistic. I don't know what the statistics are for the poor, disadvantaged areas but I do know that the taxpayers provide Social Housing, child benefit, medical cards, free education, free school books and hot lunches, back to school allowances and a whole other host of allowances. There are many initiatives available to help people to stay in education and gain independence.

What more can be done? Is there any way of reaching these young males?

Yes it's a grim job. Of course any customer service phone role will be depressing but when you're dealing with angry parents calling up to rage on behalf of their teenagers it's next level horrid. The turnover is ridiculous. I've thankfully been promoted so I'll be moving to an admin role.

The parents refuse to believe their kids do anything wrong. They will call up and scream "You cancelled my lad's policy and now other insurance companies are quoting him £5000 you fucking c*nts!!!" and then I'll politely explain "Damian's black box recorded him doing 50 miles per hour on a 30 mile per hour road, therefore we are unable to continue offering him cover." Cue more verbal abuse about how we're thieves and about how we've ruined young Damian's life because he can no longer drive his Corsa to college and now has to get the bus...

Not all of the teens we deal with are like that thankfully. You get ones are very anxious and desperate not to do anything wrong and they will call up in a panic saying "I think I accidentally went 1 mile over the speed limit I just wanted to let you know and I'm really sorry". It tends to be the delinquent ones who get their parents to phone up for them.

I don't think there is a way. We can put in some more measures but they will just be ignored by these kinds of knob heads. They want to cause trouble and don't care the consequences, the cars are stolen half the time so saying black box isn't much use is it. There needs to be serious consequences from a young age then it may nip it in the bud. I see loads of feral teens around my area, they walk down the street kicking cars they dont give a shit about adults telling them off. I don't know what the answer is really. I'd like to get a taser and taser the little bastards.

Erm no @Ncforthis2267 . Isn’t it about making things safer? Thieves will be thieves. Joy riders will be joy riders. It’s not just about these tragic few weeks. Read the statistics especially about accidents and male drivers under 21. Surely as a society we would like to allow all people over 17 to drive safely. So have your own car. Under 1 litre. Meet your friends and have fun. I wasn’t suggesting anything other than safer times on the road.

I also resent the daily mail accusation. Cheap shot that makes you look like a twat.

@itsgettingweird
@ItsPickleRick

Fair enough, then - probably just wishful thinking on my part. I suppose it figures that the crash is likely to happen very quickly on any kind of busy road; but do they really value less than a minute of the thrill more than their own lives - let alone anybody else's lives?

One thing I don't get, though - and I may well have misunderstood something: if their main reason for entering the main road and racing away in the wrong direction is to evade the police, why are they actually bothered about evading them when they clearly receive laughable to no sentences, even when they are caught? It might make a little more sense if the gamble was to avoid 20 years in prison; but when they obviously have very little to fear from the authorities anyway, why is it worth dying for?

Crush their cars

There is another incident now being reported in which the driver of a black Audi failed to stop for the police, and has now crashed into a Ford Puma. Driver of the Audi is dead and the female driver of the Puma is in hospital.

This is all very scary. They don't care about anything at all. The normal rules of society for these men are completely non existent.

In many such cases, it's not their cars but someone else's.

Then crush a car from the address they live at

Police pursuits need to make more use of technology, such as drones and remote disabling, which uses systems many modern cars have such as GPS and built in cellular connections to either decelerate or prevent restarts. We’ll never get rid of scrotes, but the tech already exists to make their shenanigans far more difficult, we just need to use it.

And to be fair, when any government tries to raise taxes the opinions around the rise are always so negative.

This morning’s headlines ‘Burnham has not ruled out Autumn tax rises’ - we can’t have it all ways, if we want public services we need to accept tax rises to pay for more police, better social services, more youth offending institutions, prisons etc.

I wonder that too. I can only assume it’s the thrill of the chase, and “beating” the police. No biggie if they get caught, because the sentences are pathetic, they’ll just do it again after they’ve been in court.

Remote disabling would be brilliant.

Imagine if this could be done from the police car regardless of whether plates are cloned or not.

They are stolen

They are starting to do this with electric motorcycles.

The APPGC&W report that I referred to earlier also recommended other actions re electric motorcycles including cracking down on online sales & ending the off-road exemption for selling motorcycles. The government hasn’t yet acted on this recommendation although judging by comments on my local paper’s FB etc this probably be quite popular.

I’m not so sure, given the ongoing in Cleveland. I think it maybe more to do with what they are carrying and who else is connected. The youths in the car are the ‘tip of the iceberg’ and will not want to be the lead to larger groups of criminals.

Cleveland Police have arrested 12 people in connection with the youths who died in the crash on the A66. Described as organised crime, arrests of nine men and three women, aged 19-61, firearms involved.

Having taken an interest in road safety for some years, I really don’t think this is a party political issue. Judging by my local councillors, there’s a difference between those who take an interest in road safety & try to understand what works. Their policies are tend to work even if they aren’t always popular (eg cutting through traffic on residential streets will be effective in stopping bad driving behaviour but people will object if it is their favourite shortcut).

The rest either aren’t interested or see the issue as a means of political point-scoring. Locally, I’ve seen this leading to road safety plans being scrapped - the problem is that it doesn’t resolve the original issue that the plans are meant to solve & there is rarely any accountability for this.

On a national level, comparing Boris Johnson & Rishi Sunak is a good example of this. Johnson was either interested in active travel or delegated to people who were & the schemes that were put in under his government were transformational local to me. Obviously, they weren’t popular with everyone as they involved cycle routes &/ cutting motor access but they were effective at stopping dangerous driving.

Sunak’s war against the drivers policy in contrast was popular but was also really damaging as it encouraged a view that drivers are victims - a view that overlooks that drivers get most of the transport budget spent on them & cause the majority of collisions. That sense of victimhood comes through really strongly in objections in local traffic consultations even where there is a clear road safety reason for the council to act.

Another five have been arrested as well.

I was making a clear link between say the number of prison places and the need to stop moaning about higher taxes. We can’t have large numbers of police officers and enough prison places if we don’t want to pay or we are going to vote out a party that wants to do this.

The background of the youths who died in the A66 accident is awful. Have they served any sentence for their criminality?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/08/24/masked-youths-fly-balloons-joyrider-killed-wrong-way-crash/

I agree with you - sorry if that wasn’t clear.

The lack of investment in prison places has been appalling.

I’ll go as far as saying they’re often not raised but dragged up by shit parents. Where I live the issue is kids on illegal motorbikes with no helmets. A boy died a few months ago on one during a police chase. The parents always blame the police for chasing, as happened with this crash. Are they supposed to just let teenagers drive down the wrong side of the motorway in a stolen vehicle then? But then again, this is the level of intellect we’re dealing with.

I agree with all of this but would say ALL under 21s should not be allowed to carry passengers, male or female, at any timer. It’s the showing off to mates which is is huge factor in this horrendous behaviour.

Also, anyone under 25 caught speeding should automatically lose their licence for 2 years and have to retake their test.

This is a big problem.

Police have to stop chase due to safety concerns but that actually just lets people think hahaha I beat them can’t chase me here childish stuff.

And as you say the times someone gets hurt it’s the police shouldn’t have been chasing them. Never well the police where doing there job.

It should always be well the criminal was committing a crime and unfortunately they paid the price. Not booo big bad police people.

In this case it seems the car chasing was retaliation for another car ramming their dad’s house.

An intelligence test, required to get a provisional licence. If you’re clearly an utter wingnut you don’t get the provisional until you’ve educated yourself enough to pass.

would say ALL under 21s should not be allowed to carry passengers, male or female, at any time.

I don't think this is practical. An under 21yr old could be married with a child. Could they never drive anywhere with their spouse or child?