Public safety: ‘Hostage’ game often requires risky teen driving behaviors

IOWA CITY - Until a recent tragedy, many adults may not have heard of the game called 'Hostage.” But since the game often involves risky teen driving behaviors, parents may want to take notice.

Johnson County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek said the game involves friends blindfolding players and driving them to undisclosed, often remote, locations before dropping them off. The players then remove their blindfolds, try to figure out where they are and then use a cellphone to describe their location to a driver who is to pick them up and take them to a finish line in hopes of beating other teams.

The game is often played at night.

'As a parent, there's all kinds of things that come to mind that could make it dangerous,” Pulkrabek said. 'Roadways just present a lot of dangers which is why there are so many crashes in today's world.”

JC Meardon, a 16-year-old City High School junior and soccer player, died Tuesday after being hit by a minivan around 10:30 p.m. Monday as he walked with two friends on Dane Road, just south of the Highway 218 overpass.

The teens were playing Hostage and thought the vehicle, driven by Julia Elgatian of Iowa City, was coming to pick them up, police said. Meardon was struck head-on by the vehicle.

'Until the tragic death of JC Meardon earlier this week, I had not heard anything from students or staff about this game,” said Molly Abraham, assistant principal at Iowa City West High School.

While some might argue the game of Hostage is creative and is certainly less troubling than other risky or illegal behaviors in which teens might partake, it does involve two major risk factors for teen drives that can increase their chances of crashes - multiple passengers and driving at night.

According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Driving, teen drivers' risk of fatal crashes increases with each additional young passenger in a vehicle. More than half of teen passenger deaths occur when another teenager is driving.

'Distracted driving can be more than someone just texting and driving,” Pulkrabek said. 'It can be more car occupants, obviously,”

Additionally, the fatal crash rate for teen drivers per mile is four times higher at night than it is during the day, according to the insurance institute.

'I think in the end, to me, it's just a really bad combination,” said Chris Rolwes, owner of Safe Driver Drivers Education in Cedar Rapids.

Rolwes said once a teen driver has graduated from his course, he sends a letter to parents recommending they limit the number of other teen passengers to one. In Iowa, parents can officially do this by accepting a legal passenger restriction which enforces that rule for the first six months a teen has an intermediate license.

'In my mind that's something that needs to me minimized as much as possible,” Rolwes said, referring to the number of teens in a vehicle at any one time.

Rolwes said he also discusses aspects of night driving, like glare and reduced visibility, in his classes.

Pulkrabek, who also had not heard of Hostage before Meardon's death, said night driving can also present dangers for teens when they get out of a vehicle. He said even if they are properly walking on the shoulder of the road, another driver could swerve and hit them.

Rolwes also has concerns the game could be surprisingly confusing for teens. He said in his experience, teens are good at using GPS while in the car, but roads may look different or be more difficult to navigate when they can only read street signs on foot.

'I've found in driving students, even in an area they've grown up in, they're very unfamiliar with their surroundings,” Rolwes said.