Teenage tragedy

I cycled round those routes with friends when I was a teenager, JaneJudge.
Our parents must have been so worried but waved us off on our youth hostelling adventures.

Callistemon21

They were boys, only one was just 18.

I do wish the news reporters would stop referring to them as men. They were boys going off on an adventure, just as so many of us did when we were young.
😥

I know and the radio today kept saying here are some words from one of the mens girlfriends which they had obviously got from social media and were just reading themselves. It really got my goat

It is just so very sad. As a Mum of boys I know how worrying it is that go out in cars. Mine also had black boxes but it is still a worry (does this last forever?) those roads in Gwynedd are so steep too but people drive up and down them safely all the time. I just can't express how sad this has all made me today. Their families lives have been changed forever too. Such a tragedy

About 20 or so years ago, we had an accident locally in which 3 young lads, all been at school together, were killed, along with an elderly lady who was in another car.

They were going too fast on a bad road, noted for its accidents.

The whole town was shocked. They had a joint funeral in the town church.

Did their parents ever get over it? They would all have been nearly 40 now, probably married with their own families.

Such a waste.

They looked such lovely happy lads 💔

I suspect this accident wasn't a question of reckless driving but just a young and inexperienced driver on dreadful windy roads ( I know them) in poor weather conditions.

A touch of it was an accident that could happen to much more experienced drivers.

I know those roads so well they are difficult to navigate even for the most experienced driver. It’s such a sad loss of young lives it really is my heart goes out to their families.

There was a series called Child of Our Time by Professor Robert Winston which covered the huge changes which take place in the brains of 16 year olds, which is why they become so adventurous and take risks and have no sense of danger (I remember it well!)
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04ycn3v
For some reason these are not available on the BBC iPlayer, which they should be.

Realising what a crazy place the teenage brain is makes me think that 17 is much too young to drive, 18 is better but 21 would be far safer.

At their age, most people feel invincible. They looked such bright, lively young men. Just cannot imagine how the parents of all four must feel.

Teenagers are buying something off the internet that overrides the black box and their parents aren’t aware of it.

So sad. Terrible news. I feel for their parents and grandparents.

Like many of us I have grandchildren of that age. One is still too young at 16 to drive, another has a black box and is very sensible, but the oldest is a lad who enjoys taking risks.
😱

Such a dreadful waste of young lives. Those poor, poor families.

My blood ran cold. I think any of us who have or have had adventurous young teenagers will think “There but for the grace of God….”.

Grammaretto

A group of 5 lads drove into the back of me at a T junction after a bend when I was waiting to turn onto a main road. It's a narrow road and there was no space to get out. My DD aged 6 months was in her front car seat, DS aged 9 in the back Luckily my DS took the number as they drove off.
None of us was badly hurt but whiplash is horrible and we were without a car for months as ours was a write off.

Later we discovered the boys were uninsured and in a borrowed car.

Passengers change the weight of a car so you need to brake sooner for the vehicle takes longer to stop. These things come with experience.

Passengers change the weight of a car so you need to brake sooner for the vehicle takes longer to stop. These things come with experience

Tyre pressure, too, is extremely important and needs to be adjusted if carrying more weight n the car. As well as four people they would have had camping equipment etc in a small car.

Even experienced drivers are often unaware of that.

Such lovely young lads with their lives in front of them. So sad. Poor families.

Thanks for the link Marydoll What a tragedy, so young, their families will never recover! RIP young ones.

The problem with having a car load of friends is that they start fooling around bantering each other and that distracts the driver, that combined with an inexperienced driver very often is fatal.
My step GS crashed his car 6 months ago driving home after a party at 3am, fell asleep and hit a tree, he was very lucky, a couple of days in hospital, no lasting injuries.
Car was a write off of course, we’re just thankful he hadn’t got his GF with him, although if he had it probably wouldn’t have happened.

I have a grandson that age and can’t imagine what their poor parents must be going through. Petroc Trelawney on Radio Three has just dedicated a piece of music to them - a choral anthem by Herbert Howells. It’s very moving.

I had hoped that too Aveline. I think we all did. So sad. Nothing worse.

I had been following this story and so hoped they were just walking and camping oblivious to the worry. What a devastatingly awful end for four young lads off on a wee break. Their poor families.

A group of 5 lads drove into the back of me at a T junction after a bend when I was waiting to turn onto a main road. It's a narrow road and there was no space to get out. My DD aged 6 months was in her front car seat, DS aged 9 in the back Luckily my DS took the number as they drove off.
None of us was badly hurt but whiplash is horrible and we were without a car for months as ours was a write off.

Later we discovered the boys were uninsured and in a borrowed car.

Passengers change the weight of a car so you need to brake sooner for the vehicle takes longer to stop. These things come with experience.

Those poor families. We are now able, with modern medical imaging, to confirm what most of us would recognise- that the part of the brain which assesses risk is not fully developed until we are out of our teens. Dangerous behaviours in the young have been the subject of despair by their elders forever - Pliny complains about young men's reckless chariot riding. I am not sure that legislation will help - I suspect it would be ignored.

There should be restrictions on young drivers carrying more than one passenger, we had an accident locally, 3 died, the driver survived with injuries, 3 injured in another car. This was straight road good conditions. No verdict yet on what happened, so devastating for all the families.

We had an almost identical accident in our area earlier this year. 4 lads, the same age as the quartet in Wales, in a car that drove into a tree, 3 killed, 1 with life threatening injuries.

These two accidents are not the only ones like this that have happened this year. What can we do to reduce them?

Raising the age for driving a car is impractical. Should young drivers have to go through a one year provisional licence when they are restricted in how many other people their age they can have in a car they are driving, perhaps limit how powerful a car under 25s can drive, our local tragedy involved a youngster driving his Dad's BMW.

Across the country, so many grieving families.

Such a tragic accident.

Let's hope some adjustments are made V3ra . There will be peer pressure on a young driver to drive without the necessary experience of road and weather conditions.

A similar rule, of not allowing young passengers, came into place in NZ about 12 years ago. Before that, 15 yr olds could apply for a licence. There were some objections from the rural community where youngsters had learned to drive tractors on the farm.

www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/company-car-tax-and-legislation/2023/04/24/new-drivers-aged-under-25-could-be-banned-from-carrying-young-passengers

New rules have been under discussion.