Trigger Warning: This article discusses reckless driving and fatal motor vehicle accidents and may be distressing for some readers. The Canadian Mental Health Association Crisis Line can be reached at 1-833-456-4566.
I still remember the way the red rims on Nick’s car caught the light.
The last time I saw them, flashing under police sirens, reflected a reality I never imagined I’d face. Nick wasn’t just another driver in a tragic crash. He was my friend, and his death wasn’t random. It was the result of a reckless decision. One I wish he’d never made.
We often think of reckless driving as something that happens to other people, as if our own lives are insulated from the consequences of risk. But now, almost a year after losing Nick, I’ve learned that consequences don’t wait. They arrive fast, without warning, and they never leave.
Nick’s story isn’t unique. It’s just one version of a much larger, preventable pattern.
In Ontario, young drivers are overrepresented in nearly every category of serious and fatal collisions. According to Transport Canada, drivers aged 16 to 24 are involved in fatal crashes at a rate nearly three times higher than drivers over the age of 25. Speeding, impaired driving, and distraction continue to lead the list of causes.
Despite these statistics, Ontario’s current approach to reckless driving doesn’t do enough to address the psychology behind it. Especially among young people who see risk-taking as normal or even thrilling. In 2007, the Ontario government implemented “stunt driving” laws, which impose strict penalties for speeding 40 km/h or more over the limit. Since then, police have laid thousands of charges each year. But numbers aren’t dropping. In 2020 alone, a total of 8,270 stunt driving charges were laid by the Ontario Provincial Police.
Enforcement isn’t solving the problem, because the issue isn’t just legal. It’s cultural.
Students are caught in a dangerous contradiction. We’re told to value freedom, independence, and living in the moment, yet we’re rarely taught what responsibility behind the wheel truly means.
On Nov. 20 last year, Nick went to our friend’s birthday party downtown. I stayed at school late that night, working on a project for my journalism class. That night, his car scraped an inward-leaning wall on the highway and caught fire. And when I think about Nick, I don’t just think about the crash. I think about how easily it could’ve been anyone else.
Nick struggled with anxiety, though he never said it out loud. Like many young men, he bottled up his emotions until they came out as recklessness.
In post-secondary school, it’s not uncommon to hear about students speeding home from a party, driving after having “just a few drinks,” or texting at 100 km/h. These aren’t isolated cases of poor judgment. They’re symptoms of a social environment that rewards impulsivity and dismisses fear as weakness.
Driving fast isn’t just thrill-seeking; it’s coping.
A 2025 study in the Journal of Psychological Perspective found that anxiety, depression, and impulsivity are major predictors of risky driving behaviours among youth. We need to treat reckless driving as part of the mental health crisis, not separate from it.
Yet public messaging about road safety is stuck in the ’90s. Billboards of smashed cars, detached slogans like “Don’t drink and drive.” These scare tactics don’t speak to the emotional roots of the problem.
For young people, fear fades quickly. Identity doesn’t. If driving fast feels tied to self-worth, no law or ad campaign will fix it alone. What we need is a cultural reset. One that connects accountability with empathy instead of shame.
That starts with education. Ontario’s driver’s education programs spend hours on technical rules and road signs but barely touch on emotional decision-making. Teenagers should be learning about how stress, grief, or even a bad day can affect their reaction time and judgment. We should be talking about what impulsivity looks like, not just what speeding is.
Queen’s and other universities could take part in that shift by incorporating safe-driving awareness into campus wellness initiatives. We’ve have mental health campaigns and services, drinking awareness weeks, and consent education. Why not an annual campaign on responsible driving?
If schools can talk about the dangers of drugs and alcohol, they can talk about the choices that kill more students every year.
Accountability also means changing how we talk about tragedy. When someone dies in a crash, we call it an “accident.” That word erases the decision that led there. If someone texts and drives, or speeds through a rainstorm, that’s not an accident; it’s a choice. That language matters. It shapes how we see risk, how we assign responsibility, and how we prevent future loss.
Every time I drive past the spot where Nick’s crash happened, I think about how easily I could’ve been in that passenger seat. Survivor’s guilt is heavy, but it’s also what motivates me to speak up.
Reckless driving doesn’t just take lives; it leaves those affected by the loss stuck with questions they’ll never answer. Including what would have happened if I’d gone to that party with him or if he’d waited five minutes.
Nick’s life ended on that highway, but his memory didn’t. It lives on in those who loved him and the lessons his story leaves behind: slow down, think twice, and remember that no text, no emotion, and no rush is worth a life.
The truth is simple. Reckless driving isn’t an accident; it’s a choice. And it’s one we keep making because we refuse to see it for what it is: preventable. I never got to say goodbye to Nick. But maybe this is how I say it. By making sure his story changes the road for someone else.
Emmet Paradis is a first-year political studies student.
Tags
Opinions, Reckless driving, Road safety
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