UK urges social media firms to remove dangerous driving videos

Defence Minister Luke Pollard has called on social media companies to remove posts celebrating dangerous driving, after a viral trend showing people going the wrong way down roads.

Pollard told BBC Breakfast on Monday: "Social media companies could take that down today, adjust their algorithms so it's not celebrated."

Two police officers died when a car going the wrong way down a dual carriageway crashed into their vehicle near Middlesbrough on Saturday. The five passengers in the other car were also killed.

A TikTok account believed to belong to one of the five passengers, 18-year-old Malakai Saddington, shared videos appearing to show dangerous driving, which have since been removed.

Pollard said the government had "already taken steps" to tell social media companies to take down such content.

He added: "They know exactly what content is on their site, they know how their algorithm works.

"They also know that people post content to get views and the more views you get, sometimes you get money for it, so it's a financial incentive to post outrageous content that gets more people watching it."

TikTok said its policies prohibit content that could cause significant physical harm, including dangerous driving, and is actively removing videos and accounts that break the rules.

The company said between January and March 2026, 99.8% of the content removed for violating those policies it took down proactively.

Pollard later told BBC Radio 4's Today programme "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."

The minister said that someone filming themselves or others driving dangerously is "absolutely ridiculous, and of course nobody should be doing that".

"It is a worrying situation if that's becoming more prevalent because it is incredibly dangerous", he added.

On Saturday, PC Tom Clough, 38, and PC Matthew Blades, 37, died when a Volkswagen Passat, which officers had been pursuing until seconds before, collided with their marked armed response car on the A66 near Middlesbrough.

All five of the Passat's occupants - Saddington, Michael Robert Cahill, 23, Jacob Matusiak, 23, Theo Rae, 17, and Cole Robert Worthy, 17 - also died.