Recent crashes have brought the issues of younger drivers and social media into the spotlight. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA View image in fullscreen Recent crashes have brought the issues of younger drivers and social media into the spotlight. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA First Edition newsletter Social media Tuesday briefing: Will UK ministers make policy change to save young lives on the road? In today’s newsletter: A surge in deadly wrong‑way crashes has exposed our failure to protect young drivers, as grieving families and safety experts warn that age, inexperience and lax licensing rules are costing lives
Prefer the Guardian on Google Good morning. The UK government yesterday backed Ofcom to take “tough action” against social media companies that fail to remove posts celebrating dangerous driving, in response to a series of unsafe, and sometimes deadly, viral trends. Young men are filming themselves driving the wrong way down busy streets, accelerating to extreme speeds on narrow rural roads and putting a vehicle in “ghost mode” – switching off headlights and taillights at night – for clicks and kudos.
Andy Burnham labelled people who share such content as “truly reprehensible” after two police officers died in a head on collision in the early hours of Saturday morning near Middlesbrough. Their vehicle crashed into a car driving the wrong way down the A66. Five young men aged between 17 and 23 were inside, all of whom died too. The previous weekend, a family of four were seriously injured in a night-time collision with a car driving the wrong way along the M9 in County Kildare, Ireland. All five teenage boys in that car also died.
These are extreme examples of a devastating and far more quotidian phenomenon: the deaths of young lads in cars on our roads. For today’s First Edition I spoke to Crystal Owen , whose 17-year-old son Harvey died in a car crash in 2023, about what makes young men so vulnerable on the roads and how a single simple reform might change things. Before that, the headlines.
UK politics | Andy Burnham has backtracked on his proposal to rip up the government’s housing plans and boost social home building.
UK news | Rupert Lowe, the leader of Restore Britain, is on course to earn as much from the social media platform X as he does from his salary as an MP, after surging income from posts that include demands for mass deportations.
Iran | The US has threatened to impose severe sanctions against any country or entity maintaining economic ties with Iran, hoping to achieve with economic measures what military means have so far failed to do.
Europe news | People trying to cross the Channel to the UK have reported an increase in French police use of violence on beaches to prevent them from getting into dinghies, according to a French NGO.
Climate crisis | The climate damage caused by developing the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields under consideration by the UK government would destroy their economic benefits many times over , according to an analysis.
View image in fullscreen Crystal Owen lost Harvey, a college student who dreamed of opening an Italian-style cafe and spent his spare time experimenting with sourdough baking. Photograph: FAMILY HANDOUT The details of these recent tragedies remain unclear – yesterday afternoon 12 people were arrested on suspicion of offences including being involved with organised crime as part of the investigation into events leading up to the A66 crash.
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