Social media must tackle dangerous driving stunt videos

For those of us who have ever inadvertently started to turn the wrong way into a side street only to see the white arrow on the blue sign pointing in the other direction, embarrassment is thankfully the worst penalty we have had to face.

Few of us can imagine why some drivers would deliberately turn the wrong way onto a motorway or dual carriageway, drive at speed into the oncoming traffic and call it 'Joyriding'!

Yet this on-coming madness is what confronted a family in County Kildare, when a group of young men smashed into their car on the motorway, seriously injuring three sisters and a young seven-year-old boy who were simply out driving responsibly.

Those young men all died.

Are these young men's lives really so boring that dicing with death is the only way that they can get their kicks?

Barry Gardiner suggests that highly public prosecutions should be brought against dangerous drivers chasing social media fame (Image: House of Commons/Roger Harris)

Is posting a video of yourself doing this really the best way that they can prove their virility?

And what is going on with the social media platforms that not only tolerate this sort of content but actively promote it through their algorithms.

It seems self-evident that X, Facebook and Insta should take such irresponsible posts down, not because they will encourage most viewers to go out and do the same - most people are not idiots - but because when people watch it out of interest or worse 'like the content', they give it an audience, and that encourages others who are idiots to go out and do the same.

Regulation of social media is a hotly debated area.

It constantly gets confused with issues of freedom of speech, so it was interesting to see that even the chair of the Reform party, who normally condemns any attempt to curtail social media, has come out and said he wants to hit the social media companies with big financial penalties if they don't take these posts down.

What if those young men had survived?

What penalties would they face?

Causing death by dangerous driving seems somehow short of the mark.

This driving was not just dangerous it was a clear and deliberate attempt to put other innocent drivers in harm's way.

Should we be talking about attempted murder?

And should that be the case even if the idiocy did not actually result in the death or injury of a third party?

Perhaps, before the social media companies take down all those stupid videos, the police should get copies of them, trace the IP address of every individual who posted them and begin using them as evidence to bring a series of highly public prosecutions.

If that would help to save one more family's broken hearts then it would be an excellent use of police time.

• Barry Gardiner is Labour MP for Brent West.