Home View from Underground Today in Bad Ideas: Playing ‘Chicken’ with a subway

Today in Bad Ideas: Playing ‘Chicken’ with a subway

by Benjamin Kabak

If you thought arming MTA workers with tasers was a bad idea, get a load of this video.

The video, originally posted on CrownHeights.info over a year ago, is making the rounds this week, and while it’s old news, it’s still stunningly stupid. Some teenagers hop into the tracks at Kingston Ave., wait to see the lights of the approaching train and then hop back onto the platform in the classic and life-threatening game of “Chicken.”

NBC New York picked up the story last night, and they have a priceless quote from someone at the station. “I guess it’s a commentary on what’s happening,” Barbara Gardner said. “Kids don’t have any purpose. Life means nothing, or they don’t understand why they’re on Earth. This is really sad.”

The MTA, meanwhile, has passed the video along to the police and urge straphangers not to do this at home. “The individuals depicted in this video should be taken into custody and then they should have their heads examined,” the authority said. Well then.

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19 comments

The Cobalt Devil April 18, 2012 - 1:32 pm

Saw a kid do this at Times Square station on 7th Ave Local a few months back. Tore him a new one and embarrassed the heck out of him in front of the whole platform. He couldn’t get away from me fast enough. Maybe he’ll think twice about doing that again.

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Todd April 18, 2012 - 1:51 pm

There needs to be a public education campaign about this kind of behavior to prevent copy-cats. I’m thinking “don’t jump on the tracks, that’s a zone of danger!”

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Al D April 18, 2012 - 2:14 pm

There needs to be parenting/better parenting.

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sharon April 22, 2012 - 3:56 pm

They need parenting period. These are the same kids that sit across from me in my classroom who do little to no classwork, homework, zero studying and have zero self control.. When you call home you get cursed out by their so called “parents” . A sad situation that that liberal solution of paying their rent, food and throwing more money into school funding has not and never will solve. Children will be children they will try anything until someone stops them and sets them straight. School based education can only change the outcomes of less than 20% of these kids. Very sad. Other solutions such as extensive parental education courses. 75% of the so called “parents” have no idea they are not parenting correctly. They were not parented properly themselves. The problem is not race or money it is parenting or the lost art that drugs and government paying people bill because they are “poor” and not deciding hey they are poor because they are drug addicts . Crack heads get ssi because they can not work due to the brain damage caused by smoking crack

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Michael Plasmeier (ThePlaz) April 21, 2012 - 5:50 pm

I’m sure they are well aware it’s dangerous. That’s why they are doing it.

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sharon April 22, 2012 - 4:00 pm

they like the high bit I can assure you they are not aware of the fact of get hit by train spend the rest of your life in a wheel chair. At my job I talk to children like this daily. They do not think of what can happen. Quite frankly they don’t think of much more than what is in front of them. I work very hard to change that . Very few are receptive .

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Aristoincurate April 18, 2012 - 3:59 pm

Crazy stuff, not sure how it works in NY but are there no subway staff around on the platforms of stations? I know on the tube in London you can normally find staff around!

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Eric April 18, 2012 - 6:38 pm

Nope.

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UESider April 18, 2012 - 6:08 pm

I vote for darwin. let nature decide

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Phillip Roncoroni April 18, 2012 - 7:07 pm

Except the family would end up suing the MTA and claiming that if there were platform doors this “tragedy” could have been prevented and that their kid was “an angel.”

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John April 19, 2012 - 10:15 am

This is why I’m glad everyone has instant photo and video recording devices in their pockets these days. If that happened to one of these kids and their parents cried foul on the MTA, a video like this would finally shut their entitled asses up.

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nycpat April 18, 2012 - 11:04 pm

Not even close.

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Robert Moses April 19, 2012 - 4:57 am

Subways should be shut down IMMEDIATELY AND PERMANENTLY! Same goes for ALL other public transportation. An incident like this one of the MANY, MANY reasons to do so.

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Nyland8 April 19, 2012 - 5:04 am

I remember as a kid, growing up on the streets of Brooklyn, that we used to hang on the backs of busses. You could get your feet on the bumper, and your fingertips behind the billboard frame, and you’d usually be good for at least a couple of stops. Then one day, while riding in a car with the family, we saw two young kids getting their free ride right in front of us. After listening to my parents rage on about how profoundly stupid, irresponsible and dangerous the practice was, I never did it again. But I never mentioned that I had done it myself on a few occasions. It’s a wonder how many kids survive into adulthood.

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Phantom April 19, 2012 - 9:13 pm

I did that too, back in the day.

Its amazing to think of it now.

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mc April 19, 2012 - 10:15 am

if people do stupid things they are going to get stupid results

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Wayne's World April 19, 2012 - 10:35 am

Some of the stuff on the Crownheights.info posting (both explanatory text and comments) is racist. Note how the caption describes the teenagers as “black.” What was the point of introducing race into it? Very offensive.

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ajedrez April 19, 2012 - 10:37 am

First of all, if this video was uploaded 4 months ago, why is it making the news now? In fact, I think this video was up for longer than 4 months, but the user had to re-upload it for some reason.

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John Doe April 19, 2012 - 11:50 am

Why didn’t the train accelerate?

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