Michigan teen kills friend in 105 mph crash

[cmyx6go]

What a terrible story. 16 year old was driving 105 mph in a 25 mph zone. Hit a tree and a pole, splitting car in two. His passenger died. His mom knew of his speeding habits, even texting him to slow down.

“Slow the f–k down right now!” she allegedly texted her son on Sept. 14 after the GPS tracking app Life360 alerted her that he was traveling at 123 mph in the family’s Audi coupe, according to the Detroit Free Press.

“I have screenshots of you doing 90 mph in the middle of the night when I didn’t even know you had left … And again two weeks ago going 123 mph just because,” another message from the mother to her son read.

Yet she gives him access to her X3 M.

https://nypost.com/2024/08/27/us-new...peeding-habit/

[Lady Jane]

Looks like another case of "affluenza". Sad...

[fakca38]

That's too much power for some kids who don't know how to drive that kind of car.

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by Lady Jane

Looks like another case of "affluenza". Sad...

There is a history of domestic violence, with the punk kid repeatedly assaulting his mother.

The mother's car was reportedly an old Subaru, and there's no reason why she should have bought an Audi or X3 M for a 17-year-old kid with police-documented behavioral issues.

There was a similar case in the NYC area last year (IIRC) where a parent gave the keys to a BMW to an unlicensed child who was involved in a fatal accident while driving it over 100 MPH.

It's about time that these negligent parents are finally being held accountable for the actions of their unsupervised minors.....

[zx10guy]

This all screams poor parenting. What's ironic is the mother TEXT MESSAGING the son to slow down.

Her troubles are only going to begin now with what I would expect to be the parents of the deceased passenger suing her for damages.

[Needsdecaf]

I feel bad for the mom (parents?) sounds like this kid was out of control. But again, get him help. Don't hand him the keys to a high performance vehicle.

That kid would have been riding his bike. Sorry. Those keys would have been in a safe. Sounds like he needs some serious help and didn't get it.

Makes me very grateful for the very minor things I have to deal with regarding my own teens.

[wtwo3]

I see more and more younger kids getting access to high powered M cars via parents money. I get the whole argument about "well you can still go fast in a slow car" - but these M cars practically beg you to drive fast - and in the hands of an impressionable teen, that's a recipe for disaster.

I've said before the only "M3" my kids are getting will be a Mazda3.

[RickFLM4]

Sounds similar to the case here where parents bought a kid an M5 and he slammed into a car going 151 mph, while under the influence. Killed 6 people. Prior to that had a history of posting pics of himself on social media going triple digits.

Parents hired attorneys who managed to get him to house arrest (since 2022) and have been trying to claim a medical issue contributed to the crash. I just googled him when I saw this thread and there hasn’t been any news on it in a couple of years. Fucker better be headed to prison and parents to bankruptcy if not charged themselves for the stupidity of allowing him out in an M5 when they knew (or should have known) what he was doing.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by wtwo3

I see more and more younger kids getting access to high powered M cars via parents money. I get the whole argument about "well you can still go fast in a slow car" - but these M cars practically beg you to drive fast - and in the hands of an impressionable teen, that's a recipe for disaster.

I've said before the only "M3" my kids are getting will be a Mazda3.

Originally Posted by RickFLM4

Sounds similar to the case here where parents bought a kid an M5 and he slammed into a car going 151 mph, while under the influence. Killed 6 people. Prior to that had a history of posting pics of himself on social media going triple digits.

Parents hired attorneys who managed to get him to house arrest (since 2022) and have been trying to claim a medical issue contributed to the crash. I just googled him when I saw this thread and there hasn’t been any news on it in a couple of years. Fucker better be headed to prison and parents to bankruptcy if not charged themselves for the stupidity of allowing him out in an M5 when they knew (or should have known) what he was doing.

And this is what's wrong with parenting these days. Placate their kids by buying them stuff to be their friend instead of doing the hard work and being a parent. This is part of the reason why we have all these entitled young adults. Had I been in trouble the way the kids being talked about here have been, my parents made it clear I'm on my own. If I end up going to the jail, I know I'll be sitting there full term as they won't be coming to bond me out.

Also the problem with life style creep these days is the expectation that every kid of driving age is entitled to a car. With the pervasiveness of Uber/Lyft, any "need" to have a kid with a car is further lessoned and I would argue cheaper financially. I've played this scenario out in my head when my daughter gets to the driving age. The number one thing I would do is get her into a real driving class that's hosted at the track versus a generic driving school. Next, if she is being responsible and a good kid leading up to this, I would consider getting her basic transportation. But will make it clear that the car will go away instantly if she is at all irresponsible.

[eugenebmw]

My dad is a total car enthusiast. He owned so many fast and furious cars that I am dreaming of. However he won't let me drive any of his cars until I have 7 years of road experience (+80000km) on my belt. He said let me drive any car more than 100 horsepower will only get you kill faster and nothing else. I am happy to drive a honda civic for my ealier age

[Maynard]

For anyone with teens, Street Survival can't be beat (and fun as hell to instruct at if you have some track experience - I'll be at the Glen doing my part on Oct 5th). Better to have your kid driving, hopefully with whatever sense you've been able to instill, rather than be at the mercy of whatever d'bag has dad's car for the night.
https://streetsurvival.org/

And this case here is worse than the typical affluenza, it is outright criminal negligence - mom knew it was enough of an issue that she got a tracker, then got the data that the kid was doing felony-level stuff ('scared her to death' so she can't say she didn't know it was dangerous). And she still caved in and let him take the BMW to run out with his buddy (no doubt to go buy booze w/ his fake ID). The only surprise here is that there wasn't a carload of innocent people in the way.

[XutvJet]

Originally Posted by wtwo3

I've said before the only "M3" my kids are getting will be a Mazda3.

My 15 y/o daughter has a 2015 Outback R (250hp) and my 19 y/o has a 2020 Mazda3 (190hp) and those cars have 70-90% more power and are way quicker and faster than anything I owned until I was 22 and got a 1994 Z28.

The reality here is most any 2000+ car/truck/SUV is easily capable of 100mph+ speeds. The X3M gets up to speed a lot quicker, but most every car on the road can easily achieve 80+mph in a decently short amount of time on the street and a neighborhood. The X3M in this report is pretty meaningless to this story, but the media knows it pisses people off to hear of kids driving Audis, BMWs, etc. so this makes for more views.

Sad story for sure, but this type of stuff (deadly high speed teen crashes) has been going on since teens got behind the wheel. At my HS in 1991, a kid had two friends in his little 90hp Civic and they were racing back from lunch to make class and he was going ~80mph through a business park, understeered into a curb, rolled the car several times, and ended up killing his two friends. He's a highly decorated cop now.

Also, I would bet a majority of us in this thread have done some really dangerous, high speed, and aggressive driving in our youth; things none of us are proud of at all. We didn't have trackers so our parents obviously didn't know. I'm not excusing anything here, but a lot of us have done some really dangerous stuff while driving that would have landed us in jail if caught or if things went sideways.

[Needsdecaf]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

Also the problem with life style creep these days is the expectation that every kid of driving age is entitled to a car. With the pervasiveness of Uber/Lyft, any "need" to have a kid with a car is further lessoned and I would argue cheaper financially. I've played this scenario out in my head when my daughter gets to the driving age. The number one thing I would do is get her into a real driving class that's hosted at the track versus a generic driving school. Next, if she is being responsible and a good kid leading up to this, I would consider getting her basic transportation. But will make it clear that the car will go away instantly if she is at all irresponsible.

Having lived in DC, I'd say that could work there. Where I live in TX, in the North Houston suburbs, that would be so prohibitively expensive as to not be worth it. Geographically, it's very dissimilar.
Plus, it's actually cheaper for me to have a paid off car for the kid for him to have as "his" car vs. the only cars being my car and my wife's car, as they are both newer and he would completely blow our policy out of the water if he didn't have his own.

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by eugenebmw

My dad is a total car enthusiast. He owned so many fast and furious cars that I am dreaming of. However he won't let me drive any of his cars until I have 7 years of road experience (+80000km) on my belt.

The first time that I ever drove one of my parents' cars was at my old man's funeral...and I was 30 years old. It was an old VW Rabbit diesel, and couldn't hit 60 MPH without a strong tailwind.

+1 on the Street Survival school recommendation.....

[Needsdecaf]

https://www.freep.com/story/news/loc...s/74595263007/

Just read the initial article. It's even worse than the summary the Post did.

The parents divorced and the dad died. Kid was clearly upset about it. But also....street racing, multiple drives over 150, etc.

NOT good. Mom needed help here and didn't seek it. This kid was out of control.

[iminhell1]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

This all screams poor parenting. What's ironic is the mother TEXT MESSAGING the son to slow down.

Her troubles are only going to begin now with what I would expect to be the parents of the deceased passenger suing her for damages.

To be fair, many newer systems will read text messages if the phone is tethered. So it's still a hands free situation.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by iminhell1

To be fair, many newer systems will read text messages if the phone is tethered. So it's still a hands free situation.

The assumption is the phone is tethered or the infotainment system has this feature.

Also, if the mom is really concerned, she wouldn't be sending a text message. She'd be blowing up her son's phone calling him to stop being an idiot.

The extra step which I'm sure my parents would do if I was that out of control....my parents would probably have called the cops on me.

[Watching The World Burn]

Originally Posted by XutvJet

My 15 y/o daughter has a 2015 Outback R (250hp) and my 19 y/o has a 2020 Mazda3 (190hp) and those cars have 70-90% more power and are way quicker and faster than anything I owned until I was 22 and got a 1994 Z28.

The reality here is most any 2000+ car/truck/SUV is easily capable of 100mph+ speeds. The X3M gets up to speed a lot quicker, but most every car on the road can easily achieve 80+mph in a decently short amount of time on the street and a neighborhood. The X3M in this report is pretty meaningless to this story, but the media knows it pisses people off to hear of kids driving Audis, BMWs, etc. so this makes for more views.

Sad story for sure, but this type of stuff (deadly high speed teen crashes) has been going on since teens got behind the wheel. At my HS in 1991, a kid had two friends in his little 90hp Civic and they were racing back from lunch to make class and he was going ~80mph through a business park, understeered into a curb, rolled the car several times, and ended up killing his two friends. He's a highly decorated cop now.

Also, I would bet a majority of us in this thread have done some really dangerous, high speed, and aggressive driving in our youth; things none of us are proud of at all. We didn't have trackers so our parents obviously didn't know. I'm not excusing anything here, but a lot of us have done some really dangerous stuff while driving that would have landed us in jail if caught or if things went sideways.

Yup, I did stupid stuff in cars when I was younger, realize how stupid it was now of course, but at the time...not so much. Doesn't excuse the behaviour when our respective children do stupid things, but all we can do is try to parent a lot better than this woman did. If I knew my kid was speeding like that, he'd be taking the heel / toe express rather than my vehicle lol.

[eugenebmw]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

The first time that I ever drove one of my parents' cars was at my old man's funeral...and I was 30 years old. It was an old VW Rabbit diesel, and couldn't hit 60 MPH without a strong tailwind.

+1 on the Street Survival school recommendation.....

Sorry for your lost

[XutvJet]

Originally Posted by Watching The World Burn

Yup, I did stupid stuff in cars when I was younger, realize how stupid it was now of course, but at the time...not so much. Doesn't excuse the behaviour when our respective children do stupid things, but all we can do is try to parent a lot better than this woman did. If I knew my kid was speeding like that, he'd be taking the heel / toe express rather than my vehicle lol.

Yeah, my kids wouldn't have a car if I found out they were doing that.

Many parents now are just as bad as parents back in the 1980s and 1990s. I knew lots of sh!thead, stuck up, egotistical kids that had little respect for people, authority, or belongings. Many of these same kiss were absolute crazy, high speed drivers too. Much of this can be traced back to bad parenting. Yes, some kids are just bad, but for the most part, it's the parenting that's the main issue.

The biggest difference between now and then is the tracking of kids and just the general helicoptering of parents in every section of their life. My wife and I have NEVER once tracked our kids because they are responsible people. Unless your kiddo is a problem, I really don't agree with all the tracking. To me, it shows a lack of trust by the parent. Same goes for helicoptering. Give your kids some freaking privacy and let them figure stuff out themselves after providing some guidance.

[ezaircon4jc]

For all you guys with young drivers, I can't recommend these guys enough! Took my daughter when she was 19ish (IIRC) after I heard about it. The course id tons of fun and VERY informative. It's only a half day and WELL worth the investment in time.

[tturedraider]

Originally Posted by Needsdecaf

https://www.freep.com/story/news/loc...s/74595263007/

Just read the initial article. It's even worse than the summary the Post did.

The parents divorced and the dad died. Kid was clearly upset about it. But also....street racing, multiple drives over 150, etc.

NOT good. Mom needed help here and didn't seek it. This kid was out of control.

That is total parental negligence. She needs to go to jail. I hope she does.