If you’ve ever raised a teenager (or been a teenager yourself), you already know that pulling pranks – like cutting class and joyriding – is nothing new.
But two New York City teens took joyriding to a whole new level this week. Instead of sneaking Mom and Dad’s car out of the garage, they got behind the wheel of an empty subway car.
Shortly after midnight on September 12, two 17-year-olds boarded an out-of-service subway train in Queens and took off. But fortunately, they didn’t get far. After moving about 50 feet, the train car they were driving crashed into another empty subway car sitting at the Briarwood subway station. According to police, the teenage train bandits ran away from the scene after the crash. Fortunately, no one was injured, and there was minimal damage to the trains involved.
Surveillance footage taken from inside the train during the incident led police to the suspects – one wearing a pink satin bonnet, crop top and shorts, the other, wearing a blue tank top and red shorts. Both teens have been arrested and face charges of first-degree criminal mischief and reckless endangerment, according to reporting from ABC 7 NY.
It’s not clear whether the suspects had any idea what they were doing behind the wheel of a train. But in a press conference about the incident, a spokesperson for the city’s transit authority noted that while no one was seriously injured in this accident, what started out as a prank could have had a much different outcome.
“It was an extremely foolish and reckless act of two individuals accessing live track,” said Demetrius Crichlow, Interim Transit Authority President.
A September 19 X post about the incident from the official account of the New York City Police Department was captioned, “Stand clear of the closing (jail cell) doors, please!”