An eight-year-old in Gastonia, North Carolina was given the keys to his mom’s SUV with the instructions to go and start the car on Tuesday night when leaving the house of a relative. Moments later, that same mother was on the phone with police reporting her eight-year-old son and his infant sibling, who was in the passenger seat, missing.
According to the boy’s mother, her son had accidentally put the car into reverse, and when the car began to move, he put it into drive and began his joy ride. The boy said he was scared, and because of this, he drove in the middle of the road so that he wouldn’t hit any other cars… sound logic from an eight-year-old. He’d also seen his mother drive before, so he knew when to stop at red lights and when to go through green ones, which begs the question why he didn’t just fully stop in the first place. This “accident” feels a lot like that scene from Talladega Nights… He wanted to go fast!
In an interview on the matter, the spokesman for the Gastonia Police Department, Rick Goodale said, “These roads that he traveled are not backcountry roads with no other cars. These are well-traveled roads in the city of Gastonia. This could have ended in tragedy.”
The boy managed to go all the way back to his house and then a few more blocks before the police could stop the car – almost two full miles. How the child managed to reach the pedals – the kid’s only 4’6″ – is a mystery, but luckily, no one was hurt during the incident. The police aren’t pressing any charges, but they’ve sent the matter over to Social Services, which means that mother is going to have quite a few questions to answer.
Hey kid, if you ain’t first, you’re last.
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