‘They’re thinking about the likes’: Deadly highway trend on TikTok horrifies Ireland | social networks
VIdeas often begin with the camera panning across a glowing dashboard while a gloved hand starts the engine. The camera pans to show masked figures in the back seat, who are also filming, and pans back to show the windshield. Beyond, a dark cityscape.
The engine pulses, the headlights pierce the night, and the journey begins, first on a suburban road, then on a highway. The speedometer shows acceleration and the needle shakes as the car gains speed.
The destination is irrelevant, because this is a spectacle: a display of audacity, lawlessness and recklessness that draws viewers to TikTok and other social media platforms with the possibility of police chases and dramatic accidents.
These videos are part of a macabre trend that has shocked and outraged Ireland following a collision last week that killed five teenagers – who were driving the wrong way on a motorway – and seriously injured a family of four, sparking a debate about policing, criminal justice, social services and the regulation of social media.
“One might ask: how is it possible that five young people approach each other and decide that this is a good idea? “Where have we gone wrong as a society?” said Graham Kavanagh, a former An Garda Síochána police officer, who used to chase car thieves. “No one is born bad, but sometimes you can meet a boy who is only six or seven years old and you know that trouble awaits him.”
In the early hours of August 16, a group of youths broke into houses and cars in County Kildare, southwest of Dublin. Police believe they were the masked occupants of a BMW who then appeared to try to incite patrol cars to chase them.
At around 3am, the BMW was traveling in the wrong direction on the M9 when it collided with a Hyundai, injuring three sisters, Ella Hendricken, Niamh Kinsella and Alma Kinsella, aged between 30 and 20, and Alma’s seven-year-old son. They were on their way to Dublin Airport to attend a family wedding in the UK.
The boys who died – Joe Carthy, 15, Kamil Pustkowski, Jack Kennedy, Alex McCarthy, all 17, and Jeremy O’Brien, 18 – were known to the police. The Tusla child welfare agency also knew three of them. Several had previously posted videos of reckless driving, formerly known as joyriding.
Seeking enthusiasm and admiration from peers through such behavior was not new, but social media had intensified and amplified the phenomenon, said Mary Aiken, a professor of forensic cyberpsychology at the University of East London.
“I would describe it as hybrid behavior. While driving the car, they simultaneously film and capture content to post later or stream live. They have one foot in the real world and one foot in cyberspace.” Cyberspace was psychologically immersive and could amplify the willingness to take risks and ignore the consequences, Aiken said. “They’re thinking about the likes, they’re thinking about the congratulations.”
The tragedy had provoked polarized responses.
Outpouring of solidarity with the injured family prompted a fundraising appeal which has raised more than €660,000 (£565,000). A vigil was planned in County Carlow on Friday night.
On the contrary, many online comments about the five children have been abusive, leading relatives to withdraw funeral notices. The first funeral, McCarthy’s, was held on Friday in Athy. Relatives wore T-shirts with his photograph and a horse-drawn carriage transported the coffin. The police watched from a distance.
Denis Nulty, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, said he shared the public’s revulsion and anger but urged people to show compassion. “We have to be very careful with language. Words can hurt, but they can also heal,” he told RTE. “Let’s not try to pillory ourselves. Let’s try to see how we can get better behavior from all of us.”
New clips of other reckless driving cases were reportedly uploaded to TikTok last week, prompting criticism of the platform and calls for greater regulation and enforcement.
On Thursday, the company declined an invitation to address a parliamentary media committee, citing the ongoing police investigation into the crash and a separate investigation by media regulator Coimisiún na Meán, as well as the fact that no other platforms had been invited to attend. Alan Kelly, who chairs the committee, called the rejection a “slap in the face” to the Irish public.
Other politicians have called for tougher penalties for dangerous driving, such as classifying driving on the wrong side of a highway as attempted murder.
There is frustration that gardaí have not been trained in vehicle pursuit and that officers can be held personally responsible if something goes wrong during a pursuit. Earlier this year, British driver training experts from Devon and Cornwall Police began tutoring Garda instructors.
Kavanagh, who recently retired from the force and is now developing a community safety toolkit for voluntary organization Muintir na Tíre, said reckless driving for emotions was a decades-old problem. “I knew guys who were addicts, they stole, they drove fast, that was what was rumored, and if the police chased them, it was the icing on the cake.”
Police could try to intercept those drivers, but all of society — parents, teachers, social workers and others — must intervene years earlier to prevent troubled youth from traveling down the wrong path in life, Kavanagh said.
