Surfing on moving subway? …young people in NY take risk for TikTok

The so-called "subway surfing", in which runners run on moving subway trains, has become popular among young people in the United States, and the number of fatal accidents caused by it is also increasing.

According to the New York Times (NYT) on February 21st (local time), 15-year-old A was on the subway crossing the Williamsburg Bridge in New York and was acting like this when he saw a structure on the 20th. He hit his head on the train and fell under the train and died.

In recent years, the number of deaths from subway surfing in the United States has been on the rise. Subway surfing, which imitates the mobile game "Subway Surfers", is a kind of play where people perform stunts like surfing on a moving train.

The New York Transportation Authority tallied that such cases more than quadrupled from 206 in 2021 to 928 in 2022. In 2019, the number was around 490.

In December last year, another 15-year-old boy, B, also died after riding a subway train to Manhattan, climbing onto a train and crashing, hitting his head on the tracks.

Experts recently pointed out that some young people are immersed in SNS to become famous and try to attract attention with TikTok.

When the NYT asked TikTok about its response to surfing videos that may incite dangerous behavior among young people, TikTok revealed that some of the videos had been removed. TikTok said, "User safety is TikTok's top priority," and "we will not allow any dangerous behavior that may lead to injury."