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A smartphone screen glows in the dark. The camera points through a windscreen as a car surges down a dual carriageway at terrifying speed. Headlights blur into streaks of white. The driver weaves through traffic, one hand on the wheel, while comments and emojis flood the screen.

For thousands of viewers, it is entertainment. For grieving families, it is a deadly reminder of a growing online culture that appears to reward risk-taking behind the wheel.

Fatal crashes renew scrutiny of dangerous driving videos

The deaths of 12 people in separate crashes in Britain and Ireland within days of each other have brought renewed attention to a dangerous driving phenomenon increasingly associated with social media.

In Ireland, the connection is particularly direct.

On Sunday 16 August, five teenagers were killed when the car they were travelling in was driven on the wrong side of the M9 motorway in County Kildare and collided head-on with another vehicle. Four members of the other family were seriously injured.

The crash came amid growing concern in Ireland about a trend in which young people deliberately drive on the wrong side of motorways and record or share the behaviour online in pursuit of attention and social-media likes.

Just days later, Britain was confronted with its own devastating wrong-way crash.

In the early hours of Saturday 22 August, a Volkswagen Passat travelling on the wrong side of the A66 near Middlesbrough collided with a police vehicle. Seven people died, including two serving police officers, PCs Matthew Blades and Tom Clough, and five occupants of the Passat.

Although police noted that there is currently no evidence linking the tragedy – which claimed the lives of two police officers and five young men aged between 17 and 23 – to social media use, the fatal crash intensified pressure on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and other platforms to do more to identify and remove content that glorifies dangerous behaviour on the roads.

A bereaved family’s warning

Few people understand the devastating consequences of reckless driving more than Calvin Buckley, whose partner Frankie Jules-Hough and unborn daughter Neeve were killed in 2023 after a speeding

driver crashed into their vehicle. Speaking to TO VIMA, Buckley described what happened on the M66 motorway.

“Frankie was parked up on the hard shoulder of the M66 motorway due to a flat tyre and while she was parked up, a speeding driver, he was driving at speeds of over 120 miles an hour whilst filming himself,” he said. “He’d lost control and ended up crashing into Frankie’s car.”

The impact extended far beyond the immediate victims. Franki’s two sons and a nephew, who were also in the vehicle, suffered life-changing injuries.

Buckley believes the problem is becoming increasingly common.

“I think it’s a massive problem,” he told TO VIMA. “These incidents are repeating and they’re happening more and more again and the consequences of it … are devastating. People’s lives are changed forever.”

“More likes or popularity over social media”

For Buckley, one of the hardest aspects to accept was discovering that the driver had been filming himself.

“It made it more difficult to accept knowing that my partner was killed and it was avoidable,” he said. “Knowing that she was killed so that somebody could increase their likes or popularity over social media makes it a lot more difficult to accept.”

Why social media can amplify risk-taking

Researchers say there are plausible reasons why social media may encourage such behavior.

Dr Ruby Rosemarie Farr, Associate Director of the Child Online Harms Policy Think Tank at the University of East London, told TO VIMA that online attention can reinforce risky behavior, particularly among adolescents.

“Likes and attention can reinforce and escalate risk-taking, particularly among adolescents whose identity and status are still forming,” she said. “Repeated exposure to explicit content such as dangerous driving content can shift perceived social norms, normaliszng risky trends and making the behavior seem more common or acceptable than it is.”

Professor Richard Rowe, Assistant Director of Research at the School of Psychology, University of Sheffield also pointed to status-seeking as a likely motivation.

“The research literature shows that when adolescents are observed by same-age peers their risk-taking increases,” he told TO VIMA. “If individuals are deliberately inviting people to view their risk-taking via social media, my expectation is that they are targeting the very small section of society that is impressed by that sort of behavior.”

The pursuit of online recognition may therefore be transforming dangerous driving into a performance, with audiences providing validation through views, likes and followers.

Yet experts are cautious about claiming a direct causal relationship between viewing such videos and real-world dangerous driving.

“There is evidence that exposure to material that glorifies risk-taking in general can strengthen risky attitudes and behaviors,” Rowe said. “But how that generalizes to the effects of this type of footage on risky driving is an unknown quantity.”

A culture of risk that predates social media

Claire Corbett, Honorary Reader at The Brunel Law School, Brunel University, told TO VIMA that the attraction of dangerous driving and joyriding is not new.

“I would only say that stealing other people’s vehicles for ‘joyriding’ purposes has been going on for decades,” she said.

Corbett pointed to research into young offenders which suggests that the excitement associated with joyriding can involve a powerful combination of danger, competition and peer approval.

An early study by Campbell in 1993, looking at Oxford youth, suggested that the pleasures of joyriding and its cult status in car culture “may lead to a fearlessness which can reach the point of being suicidal” for some young offenders.

Research by Chapman in 1994 among deprived young people in West Belfast similarly found that joyriding could provide, in one package, “challenge, risk, competition, violence, escape, release from boredom, achievement, attention, audience applause, money and sex.”

Corbett also highlighted research by McCullough and colleagues, which found that almost two-thirds of participants said nothing else felt as good as stealing cars, while a further 17% said that only the effect of drugs compared.

Another study by Light and colleagues found that 31% of young joyriders regarded being chased by police as the worst aspect of stealing cars. Yet for 14%, being chased and successfully getting away was the best experience.

The shared fear and excitement of adrenaline-fueled situations could add further to the thrill.

“So, the motivations for driving dangerously in a stolen vehicle may be already great for some young offenders,” Corbett said. “Adding in the thrill of social media ‘likes’ and possible financial rewards is likely only to enhance that thrill.”

Dr Leanne Savigar-Shaw, Associate Professor in Policing at the University of Staffordshire, believes the visibility of such content can nevertheless influence perceptions.

“Observing frequent videos of speeding and dangerous driving can amplify the idea that this is commonplace and normal,” she told TO VIMA. “That therefore has the potential to influence the behavior of those observing such content.”

The challenge for authorities is that social media can spread these behaviors far beyond the small groups that may once have engaged in them privately.

“Social media platforms provide an opportunity for trends to be shared and followed in ways that were not previously possible,” Savigar-Shaw said.

Campaigners and academics increasingly argue that technology companies must play a greater role in preventing harmful content from reaching large audiences.

Buckley believes platforms should work much more closely with law enforcement.

“These videos shouldn’t be getting more likes,” he said. “If you can see that somebody is breaking the law or posting videos where they’ve been risking other people’s lives, then these social media companies have a duty of care to flag that over to the police.”

Andy Burnham: glorification is “truly reprehensible”

The issue has now attracted political attention.

Speaking to reporters in Kyiv earlier this week, Andy Burnham said people who share footage glorifying dangerous driving are “doing something that’s truly reprehensible”.

His comments reflect growing concern that reckless driving is not simply being recorded but actively presented as entertainment, with dangerous maneuvres, high-speed journeys and police pursuits turned into material designed to attract an audience.

A Downing Street spokeswoman similarly condemned the phenomenon, saying: “the glorification of dangerous driving for clips and entertainment is utterly disgraceful”.

Platforms face pressure to act

On Wednesday 26 August the parliamentary Culture, Media and Sport Committee has written to major platforms seeking information about dangerous-driving content and what steps are being taken to remove it.

Ofcom has also stressed that, under the Online Safety Act, platforms must minimize children’s exposure to harmful material.

TO VIMA contacted TikTok. The social media platform giant says its policies prohibit content that could cause significant physical harm, including dangerous driving, and that it proactively removes videos and accounts that violate its rules.

“This is not entertainment”

For Buckley, however, tackling the problem will require a broader effort involving police, schools, parents and technology companies.

“We need to change the mindset of these young people,” he said. “It’s become a form of entertainment. We need to get across to young people that this is not entertainment, this is people’s lives being risked.”

His final message is stark.

“There’s no amount of likes or popularity or no video that is worth risking other people’s lives and causing devastation to families.”