How can we stop joyriders? ‘It begins by knowing our young people’

Дата публикации: 22-08-2026 05:00:00

Preventing incidents such as the fatal M9 crash requires legislative change, better Garda training and engaging with young men

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Driving against oncoming traffic is not a new phenomenon.

There have been at least 20 incidents reported by the media of people driving in the wrong direction on motorways and dual carriageways over the past 15 years.

These make up only a small fraction of all such incidents, as most are not reported.

Until the fatal M9 motorway crash at Moone, Co Kildare, last weekend, the most high-profile incident had occurred in July 2021 when three members of a burglary gang from Tallaght were killed driving against traffic on the N7 dual-carriageway in west Dublin as they fled gardaí.

The Garda ombudsman, then known as Gsoc, launched an investigation. In 2023, the DPP directed that Garda John Francis Ryan of Tallaght Garda station face charges of dangerous driving and endangerment arising from the incident.

The 2021 crash was significant for two reasons. First, it had a chilling effect on Garda pursuits. Second, gardaí have said criminals began deploying the tactic more, knowing that a Garda pursuit would be called off.

Following the M9 crash last weekend that left five teenage boys dead and four people travelling in the other car with serious injuries, there have been calls for tougher legislation and punishment, professional training for Garda drivers, crackdowns on social media videos and greater legal protection for gardaí involved in pursuits.

There have been calls too for earlier intervention given that by the time teenagers start joyriding on the wrong side of the road, no punishment will deter them, no matter how draconian.

David Staunton, a barrister whose areas of expertise include driving law, says the law does not distinguish between a garda and any other driver.

“A garda can be prosecuted for dangerous driving in the way any citizen could,” he says.

“If you are a garda and you are in pursuit, well then the test has to be different. Otherwise, gardaí are simply going to refuse to engage in pursuit and that is the problem.”

He cites the Ryan case.

“That has had a chilling effect on Garda personnel. You couldn’t think of a more apt example of where somebody says: ‘Look, I’m trying to do what citizens expect of me, which is to try to apprehend burglars, and in trying to apprehend them, I’m now facing trial on indictment in the Circuit Court in Dublin, where I not only could be disqualified from driving, I could be sent to prison and I could lose my employment.’”

Even before the M9 crash, Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan had pledged to introduce a law like the one introduced in England and Wales in 2022 that established the “competent and careful police driver” test. Now it is being forwarded with urgency.

Under that law, specially trained police drivers are judged against a different benchmark from the one used for ordinary motorists when assessing dangerous or careless driving.

Their driving is compared with what a “competent and careful constable with the same training” would have done in the same circumstances.

Staunton says that such a change would make a difference. He also agrees that the sanctions for those involved in this behaviour merit consideration.

The most serious driving offence is endangerment but Staunton says that is not as straightforward to prosecute as dangerous driving.

“Endangerment has been interpreted by the courts quite restrictively and it requires certain parameters to exist at the particular point in time that there’s effectively an averment to the risk, and that they proceeded nonetheless,” he says.

“Whereas dangerous driving is less difficult to prove, dangerous driving has been on the statute books in its current form for 65 years.

“If my hand was on the tiller tomorrow, I would say: why are we not increasing the penalties for dangerous driving?”

Staunton says the unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle under Section 112 of the Road Traffic Act 1961 is an offence that carries a maximum of five years in prison, and this might be considered low. By comparison, burglary carries a maximum sentence of 14 years, he says.

“There could be a case for an increase in the penalties for unauthorised taking of a vehicle. Allied to that, penalties might be increased for the unlawful carriage in a vehicle.”

He says passengers are not there by accident. “If they are wearing balaclavas and filming the whole thing, they are part of this whole joint enterprise,” he says.

James Morrisroe, deputy general secretary of the Garda Representative Association, says it has been highlighting deficiencies in driver training for a number of years and that there is no more than a handful of gardaí, if even that, trained to pursue and contain fleeing vehicles.

“We do not have enough drivers trained even to standard car course level, which enables the driver to activate blue lights and sirens in an effort to enforce the traffic legislation,” he says, referring to the “CBD Level 2″ driving course for frontline gardaí.

The GRA made submissions to senior Garda management on this issue this week to increase the number of adequately qualified drivers, he says.

The representative body for rank-and-file gardaí also wants extra legal protection for gardaí in car pursuit, a clear pursuit policy, harsher sentences and sanctions for social media platforms that carry videos showing criminal behaviour.

[ TikTok joyriders: The more dangerous the driving, the more ‘likes’ they getOpens in new window ]

Those who work with and represent at-risk young people are sceptical about the efficacy of legislative solutions, or tougher punishment.

Independent Senator Lynn Ruane, who has worked in communities with young people in challenging circumstances, says what happened on the M9 was frightening, particularly for the innocent people injured and for the families of the young people who have lost their lives.

“There has to be accountability but I don’t believe legislation will prevent this,” she says.

“The threat of prison is unlikely to be what is going through the mind of a young person driving recklessly. The potential for death did not prevent the behaviour, just as the threat of prison clearly wasn’t enough.”

She argues that prevention “starts much earlier”.

[ M9 crash: Grown-ups had a role to play in dangerous actions by childrenOpens in new window ]

“It begins by knowing our young people, understanding the communities they are growing up in and investing in relationships, trusted adults, families, education, mental health, community development and opportunities that give young people a genuine sense of purpose and belonging,” she says.

“We can be clear about the harm caused but if we dehumanise young people or use disparaging terms rather than doing the harder work of understanding the ‘why’, we fail everybody.”

Robert Cullen, a criminologist, social commentator and former prisoner, runs workshops in prisons on masculinity. He says many young men from working-class areas have few role models, have limited opportunities and leave school at a young age.

They also have a limited range for building their sense of self-identity, he says.

“High-risk behaviour becomes a means of building their masculinity,” says Cullen.

When it comes to addressing deep problems, punishment in itself is not a solution, he says, pointing out that it happens after the fact.

On a post on Instagram this week he wrote: “We need to start asking why is it always young people from particular areas with particular experience that end up engaging in this behaviour. It’s not young people from Foxrock or Blackrock or Howth.”

He says the argument that social media and the sharing of images of joyriding only encourages it is distracting, as joyriding was happening long before those factors came along. The problem was particularly acute in the 1980s, when an average of 20,000 cars were stolen each year.

For Cullen, it requires a much deeper and earlier response.

“What is the root cause of this and why are people engaging in this?” he says.

“We need to start to address those rather than dealing with it after it has already happened.”

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