New Delhi: A dangerous social media trend has taken over the UK, with young men driving cars at high speeds on the wrong side of the road. It did not stop at that. The traffic violators are also filming these “wrong-way” driving videos and posting them online.
The nuisance has caught the attention of UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who is not letting the trend go unchecked. He has urged social media companies to remove posts that glorify dangerous driving. He further called the trend “truly reprehensible.”
Meanwhile, Defence Minister Luke Pollard urged social media companies to take down the content.
“Social media companies could take the content down easily and adjust their algorithms to stop it being distributed,” he told the BBC.
This dangerous trend has also claimed lives. On Saturday, two police officers were killed when a car travelling at high speed on the wrong side of the road crashed into their vehicle near Middlesbrough. Five passengers in the other car were also killed.
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‘Being done for social media’
It later emerged that the car’s occupants were between the ages of 17 and 23. One of the five passengers was 18-year-old Makai Saddington. Saddington had previously posted videos showing dangerous driving at a speed of 100mph (160kph), which have since been removed.
“They (social media companies) also know that people post content to get views and the more views you get, sometimes you get money for it, so it’s a financial incentive to post outrageous content that gets more people watching it,” Pollard said.
In another incident in early August, five teenagers were killed in a two-vehicle accident in Ireland. Again, the car was driving the wrong way.
Justin Kelly, the head of Irish Police, said that the incident showed how “irresponsible and dangerous driving on the wrong side of the motorway is.”
“What makes this reckless behaviour even more appalling is that in some cases it is being done for social media, regardless of the potentially devastating impact it might have on innocent people and themselves,” Kelly told CNN.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)