After a high-profile streamer’s suspension, members of the Twitch community are calling for a rule change that would curb a dangerous epidemic of distracted driving. ExtraEmily (whose real name is Emily Xuechun Zhang) earned a temporary ban after she nearly crashed her car during one of her streams.
During her stream, Zhang looked down at her phone while driving. Seconds later, she nearly collided with another vehicle while attempting to change lanes. “That was my bad,” she admitted.
ExtraEmily nearly gets into a car crash after looking at her chat while driving 😳
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“whoopsies, its fine” pic.twitter.com/NRzSrAsAtw
— yoxic (@yoxics) June 28, 2026
Twitch did not agree with Zhang’s claim that her slip-up was “fine.” She received a suspension for her reckless driving, though that decision was reversed one day later.
Ultimately, Twitch went easy on Zhang, and that clemency doesn’t sit well with some creators. “They need to just ban streaming and driving entirely,” tweeted Zack “Asmongold” Hoyt. “Want to stream yourself going somewhere? Get an Uber or have someone else drive.”
“Every single person who streams and drives should be perma banned,” added gamer Jesse Cox. “They keep getting second, third, fourth chances – this isn’t ‘oh I watched a copyright movie on stream’ kind of shit. Cars are dangerous machines and if someone dies, the lawsuit against Twitch will kill the site.”
Streamers are allowed to go live in their cars as long as they don’t touch their cameras while driving, but Zhang certainly isn’t the first creator to be punished for streaming while driving. Some rule breakers have endangered themselves and others while broadcasting from their vehicles. Others, including Adin Ross and Kai Cenat, have been criticized for looking at their phones while driving.
Prohibiting in-vehicle streams is easier said than done. There is, for example, an entire Twitch category dedicated to trucking. If streaming while driving were to be banned, those truckers would lose a valuable source of income.
In theory, hands-free setups enable safe in-car streams. Reality, however, is murkier. The high-stakes nature of streaming culture already encourages reckless driving, and the distractions of chat only exacerbate that issue.
Some of the streamers who have been cited for driving-related infractions, like RaKai, were just kids when critics first raised the alarm about streaming and driving. If Twitch doesn’t want to breed another generation of distracted drivers, a stronger crackdown could be in order.
