[joejev]

> The argument comes down to when the undefined behavior occurs: is it at the deference to create the reference, or is it on the first memory access using the reference? The language pedants will say the former, but in practice, it's the latter.

The undefined behavior is always when the null reference is created. The issue will _usually_ manifest when you try to dereference the pointer, but the undefined behavior was creating the null reference in the first place.