“My child is a carefree rider”: how to recognize and save a family catcher in time

No matter how much they fight on the railway with the hookers – extreme sportsmen who travel not inside the carriage, but outside, they don’t care. Moreover, the infection of a dangerous hobby is spreading – hooks have appeared on buses and in the subway… What can be opposed to such a deadly “hobby” in a child before the train leaves? How to understand that a teenager has become or is preparing to become a hooker – in the material “MK”.

Middle-aged people of the dashing 90s will remember the guys clinging to the heels of the tram and going about their business.

Such hooking is not only out of self-indulgence, but also out of necessity, when there is little transport and there are not enough places for everyone, it is also developed in India or Africa.

Hooking, or transurfing, has varieties. If you don’t just hang on the “back” of a vehicle, but ride on the roof, then this is already roofing. If you move on the roof of a metro car, or even between cars in the subway – trainhopping (trainhop). And finally, there is also transport parkour – this is when they run or jump along the top of train cars, moving from one carriage, or even train, to another. Even in movies, not all stuntmen are assigned to do such effects.

In the United States, 15 hookers died and another 56 were injured in the New York subway from 1989 to 2011. In Germany, where this type of parkour is quite popular, in 2008 alone, 40 people died while riding trains outside. In Indonesia – 56 people also in a year for the same reasons. In Russia, where statistics are kept on all those killed on railway tracks, regardless of the cause, they claim that several dozen young people per year die from snagging. And it cripples one and a half times more.

Railway workers and police are fighting the snags as best they can. At some large stations there are anti-catching teams that literally use hooks to pull down children hanging on the cars. Not very effective and not at all legal.

Although the hooking itself is, of course, outside the legal framework. For several years now there has been talk about the need to increase fines and administrative liability for such crazy entertainment. But the cart stuck on it, and is still there. The fine for deadly skating is 500 rubles under one article, and from 2 to 4 thousand rubles under another.

In 2022, the president signed a law increasing the fine for transfers by 40 times. But so far, not a single court has been able to prove that a particular lover of extreme transport acted based on hooligan motives. So large fines from 120 to 140 thousand rubles, or even criminal punishment up to 2 years – all the promised punishments do not work.

The Main Directorate of Transport (GUT) of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs believes that there are fewer hitchhikers. And they themselves have become older: “students, or young people who are already working, under the age of 29-30.” However, in real life, more and more children aged 14-16 are seen clinging to trains.

The police also say that several years ago various communities and chats of catchers appeared on the Internet, and almost immediately the relevant department began to block them. However, “MK”, through a regular search, without much difficulty found on social networks a group of trainhoppers from St. Petersburg, transport parkourists and transport roofers. It is likely that there are plenty of other people there who want to feel the breeze and the adrenaline in them. They just use slang or internal code in their names. The same cyber police admit that each blocked group consisted of thousands of people. And group rides, which are agreed upon in advance, are also here to stay.

“Ropes, keys and carabiners for fastening, construction gloves,” says social psychologist Valery Raushinsky about the paraphernalia of the hookers. – Especially the gloves. If your child uses thick gloves, feel free to call him for a conversation. Ropes in things should also alert you. The gear of the climbers is very different from the climbing equipment – and sometimes they fool their parents so much that they take up rock climbing. Don’t be too lazy to google it or check something else to see if you can climb mountains with this equipment, or even on trains. Is there a helmet, protection for the hands, for the feet – the grips are “stuck”.

What to do if a child gets caught? Throwing hysterics, banning and blackmailing is dangerous and ineffective. Although it is, of course, necessary to explain the mortal danger of this hobby, to tell and show it.

You can try to interrupt your passion with something else. Only, again, not in the “let’s replace the makhach with a conservatory” style. If a teenager likes extreme sports and some risky activities, then this should be the alternative. Instead of ruffing, rafting, instead of transurfing, skateboarding, something like that. Now there are a lot of different sections, different sports available, fitness, martial arts. Discuss together, choose together. And, most importantly, the parent must get involved and supervise these new activities. If you don’t pay attention, everything will return to normal, because the old is always clearer and simpler. And new things require effort.