The Crawley Moped Roundabout Video is a video clip, possibly recorded on a mobile phone, which shows the antics of four teenagers from Crawley, West Sussex.

In the video, a moped is used by two boys to spin a playground roundabout at high speeds. By placing the powered back wheel of the moped on the flat abrasive surface of the roundabout, and applying the front brake, the roundabout is accelerated beyond normal safety limits.

Two girls, thought to be around 12 or 13 years old, are holding onto the centre of the roundabout tightly.

As the speed increases the centrifugal forces become too much and they are unable to hold on any longer. They are then flung from the roundabout (or "spinny-spin") at high speed and slide along the surrounding surface.

The video was originally posted on the community video site YouTube and attracted over 1.5 million views in the first few days. The video has subsequently been removed after requests from local police. Other duplicates of the video, including a "hip-hop remix" are still available on the site.

The local police force and council condemned the stunt as "phenomenally dangerous" and it has been featured on BBC national TV news and their news website.

The BBC news story indicates that checks were made at local hospitals and no related cases were reported. It is thought that the children were not seriously injured in the incident.

External links

[916] BBC News article on the video and the reaction of local authorities

[917] The YouTube community video website which originally hosted the clip

[918] The Snopes urban legends forum has a debate on the likelyhood of injury to the participants of the stunt.