What appears to be another social media-fueled “dare” trend has taken the lives of two Bay Area teens who engaged in BART-surfing on the tops of trains, and BART is now considering modifications to the trains’ rooftop access.
In the early morning hours of Monday, January 29, a body was found on the BART tracks outside Balboa Park station. Not even two weeks later on February 11, BART announced that service between Balboa Park and Daly City had been halted over “police activity.” And it seems these two incidents were connected, as the SF Standard reported Wednesday that in both cases, Bay Area teens died while “BART surfing,” and both of the boys had been posting videos of these exploits to Instagram and/or TikTok.
"No social media post, no number of likes, no great footage is worth drying for." In San Francisco, two teenagers have died in the last two weeks doing what is known as "train surfing," a trend that is popular on social media. https://t.co/Bzau0mvIug
— ABC7 News (@abc7newsbayarea) February 14, 2024
And it’s not just a Bay Area thing. In New York City, at least five teens died while surfing the roofs of subway trains in 2023, and at least one more has been killed in 2024.
For the second time in two weeks, a teenager has been killed while surfing on top of a BART train in San Francisco.
— NBC Bay Area (@nbcbayarea) February 14, 2024
Now, BART and city leaders are calling for changes, including from social media companies where train surfing is promoted. https://t.co/kbunaiefaY
An NBC Bay Area segment has Instagram video posted by the 15-year-old teen who died Sunday — video of his previous BART surfing stunts. The boy has not been identified publicly. But according to SFGate, “The boy's Instagram account features videos showing a range of risky behavior, including walks along ledges of tall buildings, hanging on the back of an N train and an exploration of an abandoned warehouse.”
And BART does feel Instagram and TikTok have some liability for allowing these videos to stay up when they get viral traction among young people.
“There needs to be some engagement with social media companies,” BART board president Bevan Dufty told NBC Bay Area.
It appears that both teens used the same method of gaining actress to the trains' roofs, via areas between where two cars connect on a multi-car train.
And BART may make changes there. “Operations staff are looking into modifications to make it more difficult to go between the cars and get up there,” Dufty explained to NBC Bay Area.
Related: Body Found on BART Tracks Near Balboa Park [SFist]
Image: Pi.1415926535 via Wikimedia Commons
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