A teenager from Utah decided to cover her eyes and drive a pickup truck – the latest, police say, in yet another online craze that seems to inspire reckless behavior.

The 17-year-old girl, whom police did not name, crashed into another car. “Predictable result,” the Layton Police Department, located just north of Salt Lake City, wrote in a tweet.

Police say the stunt was inspired by the movie “Bird Box,” the apocalyptic Sandra Bullock thriller about a mysterious force that drives anyone who looks at it into suicidal and homicidal rage. The unknown killer has decimated much of the population, and Bullock, while blindfolded, must navigate a treacherous river to take herself and her two children, whom she named Boy and Girl, to a sanctuary for survivors.

The film has become a hit, with more than 45 million Netflix subscribers watching it within the first week of its release last month. It has also become a meme magnet. And perhaps equally inevitable in this age of viral video stunts, it has inspired what the Internet now calls the “Bird Box challenge,” in which people record themselves doing various tasks while blindfolded.

But some have resorted to reckless stunts reminiscent of last year’s “Tide pod challenge.”

Layton police Lt. Travis Lyman said the 17-year-old driver pulled her beanie cap over her eyes as part of the challenge Monday, and the gray pickup she was driving crashed into a white SUV. Lyman said the girl was with a 16-year-old male passenger who was not blindfolded.

YouTube celebrity Jake Paul joined the craze by driving in and walking across a busy Los Angeles street while blindfolded as part of a “Bird Box challenge.”


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