There are a lot of car crash videos that have been posted on YouTube and the internet over the years. In one famous video, of one of Russia’s longest traffic tunnels, one can view all of the car accidents that happen in a single day when the tunnel freezes over with a thin layer of ice. Car crash videos on YouTube provide a lot of entertainment for a lot of people, but they should watch these Youtube car crash videos while understanding that, behind each and everyone one of them, there might be a tragedy at some level.
Car crash videos are sometime simulated. This is almost certainly the case when the cars represented are part of a commercial for insurance or some such thing. But car crash videos are often viewable for real also. We live in a world where cameras exist on almost every street corner. Almost every tunnel has a video camera and, while not all of these cameras have film in them, they do capture a lot of car accidents.
It is for this reason that people who are interested in car crash videos should use discretion about posting these just anywhere. Videos of cars crashing into barriers or getting hit by city buses or whatever else can go viral quickly. But people should take into consideration the situations of the people who might be in the car when it crashes. They should also consider the fact that, if these videos are depicting a car accident, they might also be evidence in one court case or another.
For this reason, these videos should not be placed somewhere which could bias a jury in one way or another during the court case. This is not easy, since we live in a world which is constantly changing. But the challenges of a constantly changing world, where we can communicate with people on a daily basis more easily than ever before, requires ethical commitment if nothing else.
