Fast and furious: the TikTok joyriders who risk dying for likes

London : It is fast and furious – and sometimes fatal. After a horror crash left five teenagers dead, Irish authorities are desperate to stop an online trend that encourages young men to drive at reckless speeds.

The teenagers died a few hours before dawn last Sunday when one of them drove a BMW at high speed on the wrong side of the M9 motorway south of Dublin, according to police.

Heading in the opposite direction were sisters Ella Hendricken and Alma and Niamh Kinsella and a seven-year-old boy, on their way to Dublin Airport to catch an early flight for a wedding in England. All four are in hospital, two with critical injuries. The crash has led to an outpouring of support for the family, with almost €300,000 ($490,000) raised to fund what friends say will be a “long and challenging” recovery.

Now the Irish community wants action to stop TikTok and other companies providing a platform for teenage groups to celebrate dangerous driving.

Online videos reveal dangerous stunts on Irish motorways as teenagers get behind the wheel of fast, often stolen, cars and post on TikTok while driving. In one video taken by a passenger, a car weaves in and out of traffic on a highway while the speedometer reaches 190km/h.

Some of the videos are attributed to a group known as the “Lucky Dip” gang because its members try their luck in stealing a car and seeing how many likes they can get online. It is not known whether the teenagers involved in last Sunday’s crash were members of the Lucky Dip gang.

The head of the Irish police force, Justin Kelly, named online platforms as part of the problem after confirming the teenage boys were driving south on the northbound side of the ​motorway last weekend.

“What makes this reckless behaviour even more appalling is that in some cases, it is being ​done for social media likes,” he said, while adding that the latest crash was still being investigated.

There was no police pursuit under way. The police, known as the Garda, had tried to stop the BMW earlier, but chose not to give chase.

Another crash earlier this month involved eight teenage boys in a car that hit another vehicle on the M50 motorway and caused serious injuries to an innocent party.

Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, known as the Taoiseach, declared there would be “no tolerance” for the reckless behaviour. The national media regulator asked TikTok for a “full account” of how it hosted content that glorified criminal activity.

But when the chair of a parliamentary committee asked TikTok to appear at a public hearing, the company turned him down.

Media committee chair Alan Kelly, a Labour MP who represents Tipperary, said he wanted to know how quickly TikTok could identify and remove videos – and how it could prevent them appearing in the first place.

The result is a stand-off with one of the world’s most powerful online platforms.