Influencers speeding through Rome in a sports car filming themselves to feed their social media led to the death of a five-year-old child, media reported on Thursday.
The accident occurred on Wednesday when the car, a rental Lamborghini on board which were five young people aged 20 to 23, hit a mother and her two children traveling in a city car.
The five-year-old boy died before reaching hospital. The mother, 35, and her three-year-old daughter were injured but their lives are not in danger.
The police have opened an investigation for manslaughter against the 20-year-old driver, who tested positive for cannabis, according to the Ansa agency.
Asked by AFP, the Rome prosecutor’s office did not immediately respond.
Some of the young drivers are part of a group of influencers posting videos of their sports or recreational activities on social networks.
They have over 600,000 subscribers on YouTube, 260,000 on TikTok and 88,000 on Instagram.
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The crash happened as they set themselves a new challenge of driving at high speed in the Italian capital and spending 50 hours in a row in the car.
Witnesses quoted in the media said they had seen them for one or two days in the neighborhood peaking at 90-100 km / h, well beyond the speed limit in town.
In a video presented as the last filmed by the young people, we see one of them getting into a blue Lamborghini, swaggering in front of the camera.
“Help yourself with your Smart which is worth 300 euros used in a supermarket while mine is worth a billion”, he says.
The accident and the death of the little boy provoked strong political reactions.
“We can propose and approve a new highway code […] by improving education, controls and sanctions. But in the face of such stupidity […]we cannot do anything”, commented Matteo Salvini, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport.
And on their YouTube channel, Internet users also condemned their actions.
“Have the decency to shut down this channel out of respect for the family you destroyed,” one wrote.