Dashcam caught moment teens riding escooters on pavement crashed head on
The 44-year-old's dashcam footage shows one cruising down the pavement and one quickly turning the street corner before they collide in wince-inducing face-to-face crash. They're both thrown to the floor as Richard and wife Anthea Garbas, 47, can be heard gasping and shouting 'wow' from their car.
The dad-of-two decided not to check on the pair because 'sod them - it's their fault' but says he did see them get up and shake hands as if to share the blame. Richard admits 'a side of him hoped they hit each other' and that he found the clip funny at the time because of their 'idiotic' riding.
READ MORE: Air India crash investigators probing theory that plane was 'sabotaged'
READ MORE: Abandoned airport near London planning to reopen with flights to popular holiday spots
He hopes they've learned a lesson from the painful incident and wants to share the clip to help parents understand the dangers of the popular new transport mode. The property maintenance worker fell off a legally rented e-scooter in Oxford during 2023 and hasn't been on one since.
Richard says he's sharing it to help parents understand how dangerous electric scooters can be. E-scooters are currently only legal to ride on public land in Government-sanctioned trial areas but Luton isn't one of them.
Richard, from Luton, Bedfordshire, said: "It was idiotic driving. I found it funny at the time. We saw the guy in the grey tracksuit coming towards us and as we got closer to the junction we saw this lad coming down the road. We both thought 'oh my god'.
"As they come around there's a side of you that hopes they miss each other and then there's a side of you that hopes they hit each other. When you can get them to go 15mph, the speed of the two hitting each other is a 30mph crash. It's like driving into a wall.
"Anthea did ask if we should go and check on them but I think my response was 'no, sod them. It's their fault for doing it'. In hindsight, maybe I should have checked on them but hopefully they got up, learned from it and weren't too badly injured.
"As we drove past I was looking in my mirror and I could see them get up and shake hands. They were going too fast for the situation because when you're going up to a corner you should be a little cautious of what's coming up.
"This is more a message to parents. Do they know what their kids are doing and do they know how dangerous [electric scooters] can be? Young kids just think the world is a free place, which is amazing, but at the same time they need to be aware."
The most recent Government statistics say there were 1,292 collisions involving e-scooters in 2023. Richard says he's been in an electric scooter crash himself after using one to get home from a night out in 2023.
He says the wheel got lodged down a hole as he rode through a park, throwing off the device and cutting his face. The dad got treatment from an ambulance worker the following day and has been keen to warn his kids Henry, 12 and Elliot, 10, against using them since.
His post has more than 1,600 reactions and 300 comments on Facebook. One commented: "That could have easily been a child in a buggy."
A second agreed and said: "Yep or a small child walking, our an elderly person, could have easily been a fatal impact."
A third said: "But it wasn't, so it's funny!" A fifth said: "Serves them right, that's why we all have lessons and take a test... numpties."
One even said: "Shouldn't be using a scooter on the footpath, and the other idiot who was originally on the road didn't have a crash helmet on. Shame they didn't seem to be seriously injured."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Musk vows to start a new political party. Here's why that's harder than it sounds.
As billionaire Elon Musk feuds with President Trump over his signature tax and domestic policy legislation, Musk has reupped his calls to launch a new political party — a daunting task even for the wealthiest person on Earth. Musk first floated launching a third party, dubbed the "America Party," earlier this month, part of a nasty back-and-forth between the president and the Tesla CEO that marked the likely end of their political alliance. Musk raised the idea again this week as lawmakers raced to send the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to Mr. Trump's desk — and this time, Musk put a time limit on the plan. "If this insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day," Musk wrote in a post on X Monday evening, hours before the bill passed the Senate on Tuesday and headed back to the House. "Our country needs an alternative to the Democrat-Republican uniparty so that the people actually have a VOICE." It remains unclear if Musk will follow through on his pledge, but the idea could be easier said than done. If Musk decides to launch a new political party, he'll need to contend with a thicket of complicated state laws, time-consuming ballot access rules and intense litigation. "Only the richest person in the world could make a serious effort at creating a new American political party," Brett Kappel, a veteran election lawyer, told CBS News. Navigating 50 different state laws — and federal rules "Political parties are creatures of the states," Kappel said. Each state has different legal rules for recognizing which political parties can appear on the ballot, and those hurdles "range from high to extraordinarily difficult to overcome," he noted. In some cases, a nascent state party may need to get candidates onto the ballot by submitting large numbers of signatures, and then win a certain percentage of the vote across election cycles. For example, to qualify in California, a new political party needs to either sign up 0.33% of the state's voters — or about 75,000 people — as registered members, or submit signatures from 1.1 million voters. After that, in order to remain qualified, parties have to either maintain that 0.33% registration threshold or win at least 2% of the vote in a statewide race. And to gain recognition at the national level, each state-level political party would need to seek an advisory opinion from the Federal Election Commission. These efforts would almost certainly face intense pushback from the Democratic and Republican parties, including legal challenges over signatures in each state, requiring Musk — or any other aspiring third-party founder — to spend scores of money on litigation. "The state laws in all of the states are biased towards the two major political parties, and make it as difficult as possible for the emergence of a third political party," Kappel told CBS News. The process of creating a political party with national ambitions would be time-consuming, too. Kappel says it might be doable — albeit difficult — for Musk to get a few favored candidates onto the ballot in certain states, but building an entirely new national party would likely take years, and would not be possible by the 2026 midterm elections. For evidence of how challenging the process is, look no further than the struggles that existing third parties have faced. The Green Party and Libertarian Party were each founded decades ago, and still engage in state-by-state pushes for ballot access and party recognition. "The hurdles for creating a new party and getting it on the ballot are extremely high. It can be done if you have endless amounts of money, but it's a multi-year project and will cost hundreds of millions of dollars," Kappel said. Musk's campaign cash The high cost of launching a political party may not be a big stumbling block for Musk, whose net worth exceeds $350 billion according to Forbes and Bloomberg's valuations. The Tesla and SpaceX leader spent a staggering $277 million to aid Mr. Trump and other Republican candidates in the 2024 election cycle. The bulk of that spending, roughly $239 million, was routed through America PAC, a political action committee founded by Musk that underwrote a sprawling get-out-the-vote effort across the swing states. Since then, Musk has hinted that he plans to dial back his involvement in politics. His tenure leading the Trump administration's cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency ended in May, a month after telling Tesla shareholders his work with the federal government will "drop significantly." He also said at the Qatar Economic Forum in May that he will "do a lot less" political spending moving forward, noting he doesn't "currently see a reason" to keep opening his wallet. If Musk follows through on his proposal to launch a competitor to the two mainstream parties, it would mark an expensive return to the fray — and the laws around how to finance it are complex. Before new political parties are formally recognized, they are typically organized as not-for-profit groups, and their financial backers do not face any dollar limits to their donations, Kappel says. But once a party gains national recognition, donors like Musk would be subject to the FEC's caps on political contributions. Currently, individuals can only give $10,000 a year to a state political party, or $44,300 a year to a national party committee, the FEC says. The rules governing when organizations are subject to those limits are byzantine. Almost two decades ago, the FEC said a group called Unity08 — which aimed to create a bipartisan presidential ticket — must register as a political committee if it spends over $1,000 trying to get ballot access. After a lengthy legal battle, an appeals court reversed that decision. Another way for Musk to keep wielding political influence would be through America PAC. The group is organized as a super PAC, which allows Musk to donate unlimited sums of money, but requires the group to remain officially independent from candidates or political parties. Even as he mused about launching a third party, Musk implied this week he could remain engaged in Republican politics. The billionaire suggested he will back primary challenges against GOP lawmakers who voted for the Trump-endorsed One Big Beautiful Bill Act. He also vowed to lend support to Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who voted against the bill and is facing a Trump-backed primary contest. The president, for his part, has said in recent days that Musk appears to be "upset" that his signature tax and domestic policy bill would phase out electric vehicle tax credits — which could cost Tesla billions. Some of Musk's criticisms of the bill have focused on its steep cuts to green energy incentives, though he has also argued the bill is too expensive. "I think Elon is a wonderful guy, and I know he's going to do well always," Mr. Trump told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo in an interview that aired Sunday. "But he got a little bit upset, and that wasn't appropriate." Robots on verge of outnumbering humans at Amazon warehouses, Wall Street Journal reports Next steps in Sean "Diddy" Combs trial after partial verdict Reporter's Notebook: When politicians cry wolf on fiscal restraint
Bloomberg
5 hours ago
- Bloomberg
Big, Left-Hand Drive US Cars a Tough Sell in Japan, Ishiba Says
American cars in general are a tough sell in Japan, according to Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who added his government needs to discuss with the US how to boost car imports from America. 'We can't sell left-hand drive, huge, fuel-inefficient cars made in the US,' Ishiba said Wednesday. 'We'll discuss with the US how to produce better products and bring them into Japan, while considering Japan's safety.'
Bloomberg
6 hours ago
- Bloomberg
Bangladesh Court Sentences Ex-PM Hasina to Prison for Contempt
A tribunal in Bangladesh has sentenced former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to six months in prison for contempt of court, the first verdict in any case against her since her government collapsed in August last year. The prison term will be enforced if Hasina returns to Bangladesh, either through arrest or voluntary surrender, Chief Prosecutor Tajul Islam said at a media briefing after the court verdict Wednesday.
