Social media companies have been told to take down videos showing people driving the wrong way down roads, following two fatal accidents.
Five young men and two police officers were killed when a Volkswagen Passat – which had been pursued by police – was driven the wrong way along a dual carriageway and hit an armed response vehicle.
Officers Pc Matthew Blades, 37, and Pc Tom Clough, 38 as well as, Cole Robert Worthy, 17, Theo Rae, 17, Makai Saddington, 18, and 23-year-olds Michael Robert Cahill and Jakub Matusiak were pronounced dead at the scene in Teesside early on Saturday.
But it has been reported that Saddington was involved in filming dangerous driving in TikTok videos before the fatal crash took place.
Just one week earlier five teenagers died and four others were also seriously injured after a car drove on the wrong side of the motorway in Kildare, Ireland on August 16.
Garda Representative Association (GRA) vice-president John Joe O’Connell criticised those partaking in wrong-way driving as “playing Russian roulette with their lives and everyone else’s lives”.
Is it illegal to film yourself driving?
It is illegal to hold and use a phone while driving and it should not even be in your hand for any reason, whether online or offline.
That means you must not test, make calls, take photos, videos or browse the web.
This law still applies if you have stopped at traffic lights, queuing in traffic, or holding a device that’s offline or in flight mode.
However, you can use your phone to call emergency services and it is impractical to stop.
Is it illegal to film yourself driving on dashcam?
Hands-free devices such as bluetooth headset, dashcam holder, windscreen mount or voice command can all be used, as long as you do not hold them at any time during usage.
The device must not block your view of the road and traffic ahead.
Why has the Government told TikTok to remove dangerous driving videos?
The government has told TikTok and other social media companies to take down content featuring a social media trend showing people driving the wrong way down roads.
It came after it was revealed Mr Matusiak, who was involved in the A66 crash, had previously shared footage on his social media showing him driving recklessly in cars and motorcycles. One video, which has now been deleted, appears to show him behind the wheel of a car barreling through a neighbourhood and across an estate.
Defence minister Luke Pollard said social media platforms should act to remove posts showing people driving the wrong way down roads.
“There’s lots of content online on social media platforms of people celebrating dangerous driving, celebrating driving inappropriately on our roads down the wrong side of the roads, behaving incredibly badly,” he told BBC Breakfast.
Cleveland police and crime commissioner Matt Storey said that it’s “worrying” that the dangerous driving trend is becoming more prevalent.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Without being able to say whether that was anything like involved in this case, it’s absolutely idiotic for anybody to be doing anything other than being completely 100% focused on the road when they’re behind the wheel of a vehicle.
“And for somebody to be filming themselves or doing anything like that is absolutely ridiculous, and of course nobody should be doing that.”
What are social media firms’ responsibilities?
There is no automatic duty on social media providers to take down the videos under the Online Safety Act, unless a wrong-way driving video is classed as illegal content.
The Act requires tech firms to assess and mitigate the risk of people in the UK encountering illegal content on their platforms, and removing illegal content swiftly when they become aware of it.
However, the content itself must amount to a criminal offence in order to be considered illegal.
Depictions of criminal activity are not generally covered by the Act and responsibility is understood to lie with platforms to decide whether content breaks UK law.
