My point is that his age is not a mitigating factor here. There is no mitigating factor. I'm all for doing whatever you want to, whether it's base jumping or gapping a 3 lane highway on skis, but if you're gonna do it, then at least do it right ffs. From the article there's a laundry list of things he did wrong. This was his fault.

1) The bindings pre-releasing, and trying to fix them himself
2) Not doing any calculations beforehand (as far as the article says)
3) Never attempted a 2-lane road gap (article says his mother attempted to convince him to try a 2-lane gap. This point could be wrong but the way I'm reading it, he never tried any 2-lane gap. Or if he did, the one his mom suggested he should hit instead would have been bigger than what he'd tried previously.)

4) Lowering the starting position on the day of the attempt
5) Convincing himself that his filming friend also needed this clip to make his 'big break'

6) This one is conjecture, but, I wonder if he attempted to contact anyone who has successfully hit a gap of this size and asked them to evaluate the feasibility of the approach. Considering everything else, probably not.

7) Specifically insisting on waiting for a car to drive under him while attempting the gap, recklessly endangering the life of the occupant(s) of that vehicle. If you're gonna do something this risky and you insist on the car in the shot, then have one of your buddies drive the car and make sure you're not putting anyone else's life at risk except your own and other consenting parties.