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[Nickbat]

Once again, and it seems to me for the umpteenth time, the weekend brings teenage carnage on the roads and, once again, you only need to read that eight people were travelling in the VW Passat (7 dead, driver survived) to spot the primary cause, IMHO.

When will the police, road safety campaigners et al look at overloading in the same way they view drink-driving and so on??

Any car with this amount of people in is a death trap looking for a resting place - especially in the hands of teenagers.

I'd be interested to read the stats on multiple deaths in single vehicles.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/10594606.stm

A sad waste of young life, IMHO.

[Sixstring]

Oh, dear, not again.
Recently near me, police found ELEVEN people in the back of a transit van hanging on for grim death on the way to a party. ok, they didn't have an accident, but IF they had.......doesn't bear thinking about.
Most of them in the back were only teenagers too.

[Andy B]

but we're all bullet proof when we were kids ...... or so we think. I can remember giving a lift home to about that many in my MKIII Cortina nearly 30 years ago

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

We managed eight people in in Mini when I was seventeen....four boys and four girls......It was great fun...

[Sixstring]

Aye, Andy......I remember a couple of my mates drinking 8 or 9 pints and driving home through the lanes cos the cops didn't go there too......and they got away with it and still here to tell the tale.

Traffic is so different and more now, in those days we didn't even have to wear seatbelts!!

[Nickbat]

The point is, and I'm not trying to a fuddy-duddy, but eight people in a Passat puts the vehicle well beyond it's operating specs in terms of brakes, steering, tyres and suspension. You'd have as much control over the car as if you were a sole occupant that had just consumed a bottle of whisky.

Yet, it's not given much weight as a safety issue and, as has been shown by some of the remarks, it's merely deemed as a "bit of a laugh". Obviously, teens are under peer-pressure and often there is only one car to serve many, but it really is very, very dangerous.     

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

Aye, Andy......I remember a couple of my mates drinking 8 or 9 pints and driving home through the lanes cos the cops didn't go there too......and they got away with it and still here to tell the tale.

Traffic is so different and more now, in those days we didn't even have to wear seatbelts!!

.....Or have airbags....5 Star Ncap safety tests.....ABS......ESP......and yet most of us managed  to survive it.

[TheBoy]

What the authorities will do is exactly what they did when that stupid bint put a load of kids (not just her own) in her MPV in Oxford 4 or 5 years back, and killed them all by driving off the road (national speed limit), across a 10m grass central reservation, and into oncoming traffic.

They put a ridiculous speed limit on this piece of dual carriageway as its now an 'accident hotspot' because 8 or 9 people died (all in this one incident) that year.


Brain dead morons.

[Sixstring]

In a nutshell, it was as stupid then as it still is now, and the consequences are the same.

we were ALL young once, but some couldn't see the dangers then.

Foresight is good in Hindsight.

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

The point is, and I'm not trying to a fuddy-duddy, but eight people in a Passat puts the vehicle well beyond it's operating specs in terms of brakes, steering, tyres and suspension. You'd have as much control over the car as if you were a sole occupant that had just consumed a bottle of whisky.

Yet, it's not given much weight as a safety issue and, as has been shown by some of the remarks, it's merely deemed as a "bit of a laugh". Obviously, teens are under peer-pressure and often there is only one car to serve many, but it really is very, very dangerous.     

I find it hard to picture you as a reckless" lets grab the world by it's balls and f##k the consequences" young guy...... Nick  .......but as SS has stated....being young and crazy is part of life and always will be....

[Kevin Wood]

No motoring offence that can't be detected by a roadside camera is taken seriously any more.

Kevin

[redelitev6]

  ages from 19 to 23 what a shocking waste 

[Amigo]

KW makes a valid point. Not the police's fault, they're too tied up with paperwork now to actually get on with the job they want to do & things have changed over the years. Drink driving has been illegal for donkeys years but 30 odd years ago did'nt have the social stigma it has today. My Dad used to play rugby league when he was in the RAF & sice then every year he would meet up with an old mate @ "Twickers" & spend a day in the stands drinking Party 7's. I asked Dad & his mate why they did'nt need to pee all day & was told, " you have to empty your first party 7 so you have a reseptacle in which to drain off"! 7 pints before the first wee , all day then drive back to Sussex, no seat belts, crumple zones or airbags. None of us would do this now but he was never drunk, over the limit maybe but never drunk.
   Things change!!

[derry lad]

this happened a few miles from me.i know 3 of the lads very well,the whole community is numb.

[Banjax]

If you can't be stupid and irresponsible when you're young when can you be?

I see the current safety ads encourage use of a designated driver - you know what, just leave the car out of the equation altogether, get a taxi home whats the big deal? folk piss a fortune worth of drink up the wall and balk at spending a couple of quid on cab fare? 

never understood it - when i was a lush back in the day i'd drink til dawn and walk to the bus station......the conductor didnt mind me staggering aboard, reeking of booze - and to be fair neither did my passengers