The four joyriders who died in a horrific fireball when the stolen car they were travelling in smashed into a chip shop in December 2008 were no angels.

No-one is pretending they were, and it is only by good luck that no innocent lives were lost.

But they were, too, young men with families, friends and loved ones and a lot of life left to live. The tragedy is that they risked all of this – their very futures – in a night of selfish and reckless thrill-seeking, and paid the ultimate price.

Perhaps, like some young people, they thought themselves invulnerable and untouchable, if they thought about it at all.

Maybe that is why they brushed aside warnings from those closest to them not to joyride – a decision that cost them their lives.

There are, however, others involved in stealing cars who still have time to heed such words, words that were courageously repeated by the driver’s grieving family after yesterday’s inquest in the hope that other lives may be saved and that these deaths will not have been in vain.

Hopefully those hooked on joyriding will read this heartfelt plea, look at the photographs of the dead young men and realise that the next ones featured on newspaper front pages in similar circumstances could all too easily be their own.

They should think, too, how they would feel if a stolen car they were in took the life of an innocent person.

And they should know that joyriders are only ever seconds away from becoming despised killers or dead themselves, leaving only grief in their wake.