'Hell on wheels': Teen convicted of crashing car at 100 mph, killing boyfriend and friend
nbcnews.com
“This was not reckless driving. This was murder,” the judge said before she read out Mackenzie Shirilla's verdict Monday afternoon.
You are viewing a single comment
Guys, she's 18. Her brain isn't even fully developed yet. She's not even capable of fully rationalizing the consequences of her actions yet. I know she did something awful but I don't think there are any winners here.
You don't need a fully developed brain to understand that intentionally driving into a brick wall at 100 mph will have severe consequences.
Literally the risk averse part of the brain is the one still in development.
Not being fully developed ≠ nonexistent
We shouldn't remove all consequences for your actions until you turn 25. Young people are a little dumber, but they're not infants. They should still be able to think for themselves.
That's not really implied by simply acknowledging that their brain isn't developed yet, not sure why you are defensive about it like giving them keys to a death machine when they also clearly have had mental issues and haven't gotten far along in their prefrontal cortex is a necessary rite of passage. There are a lot of possible angles to look at situations like this to consider how to fix them and blaming the people involved might be the easy answer but actual justice for society becomes more complicated. Nobody wants to deal with this story, and that's the bottom line.
How much of that do you need to assess whether driving into a brick wall at 100 mph is a bad idea. How did this person even stay alive until 18?
The gravity of mortality though probably didn't even exist in her brain based on this story. Yeah no shit driving into a brick wall can kill you, she threatened that specifically. I guarantee the discourse here has prevented zero additional death-by-intentionally-driving-into-a-brick-wall murder stories. Nobody is becoming less dumb by pointing out how stupid this girl is, preventing another idiot from intentionally driving into a wall in order to control her codependent relationship. It's not endemic and pointing out how brains develop and where this girl was at is not going to make it so. You aren't preventing more death-by-driving-into-a-brick-wall copycat crimes of passion. Raising awareness about mental issues (including developmental stages) can help people prepare for and prevent their own tragedies better. Congrats though, thanks to you I will definitely not drive into a brick wall.
I'm sure she did understand, she probably didn't think she'd survive, though, so any consequences of that possibility probably didn't occur to her at all.
According to Western societies, 18 is when the "fully developed" switch flips from OFF to ON, not a minute earlier or a minute later.