Montreal Gazette - Youth prone to imitate risky behaviour: expert

Car-surfers -mostly males aged 15 to 19 -are largely "modelling or copycatting" the kinds of high-risk behaviour that shot to prominence with the 2002 movie Jackass and a steady stream of imitative YouTube videos of often "really dangerous" stunts, a Montreal expert said yesterday.

"You mix hormones with the whole notion of risk-taking, and it's kind of an adrenalin rush -with their buddies sitting there and applauding," Jeffrey Derevensky added. "They're watching other people and they want to copy what they're doing, to push the limits."

Derevensky is co-director of the International Centre for Youth Gambling and High Risk Behaviour at McGill University's Faculty of Education. "Parents should be talking with their children about how this behaviour is not acceptable," he said. "We need to set limits."