Car surfing involves riding on the outside of a moving vehicle being driven by another person. It has resulted in numerous deaths, predominantly causing severe head injuries.^[1]

The Quebec Provincial Automobile Insurance Company defines car surfing as follows:^[2]

• Riding on a moving vehicle (on the roof, at the rear, on the side, etc.);
• Riding in the box or cargo space of a truck or pick-up truck;
• Holding onto or being pulled by a moving vehicle;
• Riding in a sofa, on a skateboard, a sled or any other object hitched or tied to a moving vehicle.

History

Car surfing, a term introduced in the mid-1980s, involves riding on the outside of a moving vehicle being driven by another person.^[1] It has been popularized by the hyphy movement seen in the fad of ghost-riding, except the vehicle remains under the nominal control of another person.

Risks

A 2008 study by the United States Centers for Disease Control^[1] identified 58 newspaper reports of car-surfing deaths and 41 reports of nonfatal injury from 1990 through summer 2008. Most reports of injury were found in U.S. Midwest and Southern newspapers (75%), largely involving males (70%) and youths aged 15–19 (69%). A majority (58%) of reported car surfing incidents ended in death.